During the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2024, ABSL announced the start of operations in Brussels.
ABSL sister organizations operate in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Moldova, Poland, Romania and the DACH region (Austria, Germany, Switzerland). The new initiative announced in Davos means that the Polish-based organization will support the development of the modern business services sector throughout Europe.
– ABSL's presence in Brussels results from pragmatic reasons. We are present on 11 markets in Europe and bring together approximately 600 companies. Therefore, we are the largest organization representing the business services sector, which, according to estimates, employs approximately 40 million people in the European Union compared to 200 million of all employees, says Jacek Levernes, chairman of the ABSL founding council, co-founder of ABSL in Poland. – It is worth emphasizing that business services are provided not only by employees of service centers, but also in accounting, human resources and IT departments in every company on the market – as functions supporting basic business. In addition, we naturally represent all companies providing commercial, knowledge-based business services. This view, redefining the sector, shows that in 27 EU countries, 50 million people may work in business services by 2030 – he adds and concludes: – Thus, as ABSL, we unite the industry and want to have an impact on the market.
ABSL's goal is to promote innovative solutions and support new investments that allow the entire sector to develop at a new level. From this perspective, regulations are key.
– We are observing changes in the law in various areas – from employment to investments, which are of key importance for our member companies and translate into the competitiveness of doing business in Europe compared to other continents, which is why we want to cooperate with EU representatives, international organizations and decision-makers – declares Jacek Levernes .
He emphasizes that the development of knowledge-intensive services is an important support for the economies of individual countries.
– We must be sure that we will make good use of global trends resulting from geofragmentation, attracting new investments to Europe that will translate into further socio-economic development – he emphasizes.
In this context, regulations regarding artificial intelligence, for example, are important for the sector. So far, the organization's branches have lobbied and cooperated in creating regulations at the level of each country. The same applies to the development of competences and employment regulations.
The redefinition of the sector will provide tools to estimate the real demand for employees and determine the directions of development of the labor market, taking into account the latest technologies.
– In the coming months, we will have many meetings in Brussels with decision-makers and stakeholders and the ABSL Roundtables organization, during which we will disseminate knowledge about the sector, analyze trends, but also debate about the European economy, its future, the challenges we face, and ways to deal with them. To begin with, we want to focus on three areas that are important from the sector's point of view, namely: the labor market, technology and artificial intelligence, and ESG. We believe that thanks to ABSL's permanent presence in Brussels, we will have better access to the EU legislative process and decision-makers, and our proactive legislative activity will have a positive impact on the business services sector throughout Europe, says Jacek Levernes.
JPO
