DLA Piper has ramped up its low-cost services offering, opening a centre in Warsaw and eyeing Asia for a fourth base across the globe.
The firm confirmed the creation of a small service centre opened in the Polish capital earlier this month and said it was currently piloting the transfer of some administrative finance, HR, marketing and IT processes there from Germany as well as some HR processes from The Netherlands.
DLA Piper added it was considering opening another services centre in Asia to enable 24/7 support for clients.
Chief operating officer Andrew Darwin said: ‘We are constantly looking at ways in which we can make the firm’s operations more efficient and effective, and piloting Warsaw for inclusion in our global shared services capability is part of that. For EMEA, we think Warsaw could be complementary to what we currently have in place and potentially offers an attractive combination of quality and value.’
Earlier this week, White & Case said it was also considering up a shared services centre in Europe.
EMEA chief operating officer Nick Salmon said: ‘We’re in the very early stages of considering whether or not to set up a shared services centre in Europe. White & Case already has around 450 employees in the successful shared services centres we’ve established in Manila and Tampa, which would limit the scale of any third facility we put in place.’
Meanwhile Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer established its low-cost services hub in Manchester this year, having taken out office space in October to double its current Manchester base. Staff are expected to move there from early 2017.
victoria.young@legalease.co.uk
