Energy company E.ON Romania opened a business service center specializing in accounting services in Cluj- Napoca yesterday (January 8 ) with plans to hire 600 people at the center by 2015.

In May, 2012, E.ON Romania’s management presented to employee representatives its intention to render the company more efficient by grouping its operations into Business Service Centers in order to trigger “significant cost reductions, a higher standardization of processes, […] an optimization of institutional expertise and to ensure consistency of quality standards across the entire E.ON Group”, according to the press release posted on the company web site at the time. Two such centers were scheduled to be created, one in Cluj-Napoca, and a second in Berlin, with approximately 1,100 staff in total.

“[The Cluj center] will offer accounting services, but it will also play a role in providing support for human resources activities,” said Frank Hajdinjak, E.ON Romania CEO at the time. “By creating this center we are aiming to offer approximately 600 jobs. However, this also depends on E.ON’s capacity to provide competitive hiring conditions in the future negotiations with the employee representatives”.

Negotiations appear to have been fruitful as the process is now reaching its final stage. Recruitment for the newly opened Cluj Business Services Center has started, and 75 people are already on board. The personnel count is expected to reach 200 by the end of 2013.

“The proposal for a restructuring of the human resources and accounting services represents an important step in the implementation of our efficiency enhancement program, E.ON 2.0, and is integral to the Group’s capacity to be competitive and make the necessary investments”, according to Markus Schenk, member in the E.ON AG’s Board of Directors, who was in charge of the Business Service Center project.

E.ON is present in 30 countries, with a total annual sales volume standing a little under EUR 69 billion, according to the company website. E.ON Romania, a member of the E.ON Group, acts as a platform supporting the E.ON companies operating in Romania in the natural gas and power domains. E.ON Romania is the majority shareholder of E.ON Energie Romania, E.ON Gaz Distributie and E.ON Moldova Distributie. E.ON Romania SRL had a total turnover of approximately EUR 12 million (RON 54 million) and 53 employees in 2011 according to the data available on the Ministry of Finance website.

Ioana Jelea, ioana.jelea@romania-insider.com

(photo source: E.ON)