Central and Eastern Europe’s shared service centres were built on wage-cost advantage and routine back-office processing. Now, as AI automates simpler tasks and the market matures, Poland and its neighbours have already moved into higher-value finance, controls, analytics and decision support, reshaping the skills accountants need.
For more than two decades, shared service centres in the region have been one of the quiet success stories of European business. Multinationals moved payroll, bookkeeping, accounts payable and basic reporting to cities such as Kraków, Wrocław, Budapest, Prague and Bratislava, attracted by skilled workers, lower costs and proximity to Western Europe.
The evolution of shared services is an evolution of finance work itself
That first phase of rapid expansion is now giving way to something different. In Poland, the region’s largest business services market, just 61 new centres were launched in the 15 months to April 2025, compared with a peak of 146 in 2016, according to a report from the Association of Business Service Leaders (ABSL), an industry body representing shared services, global business services, outsourcing and R&D centres. At the same time, AI and automation are taking on the rules-based tasks that once dominated many of these centres.
‘The market is becoming more mature,’ says Radosław Jankie, shared services and outsourcing leader at KPMG Poland. ‘There are nearly 3,000 organisations across the region operating in a centralised model, and most of the largest companies have already adopted it.’
Maturity is by no means the same as decline. Poland’s business services sector employed 488,700 people in the first quarter of 2025, up from 164,600 in 2015. Employment still rose by 28,500 in 2025, with most growth coming from existing operations expanding. Export earnings for the sector were US$42.3bn in 2024, up from US$36.8bn in 2023, while between 2021 and 2023 gross value added increased by 46% and employment by 22%. The build-out phase may have slowed; the deepening phase is well under way.
Old model
The shift is visible in the type of work being done. Mid-office tasks accounted for 54.2% of process work in 2025, up from 46.1% in 2021, while back-office work fell to 42.7% from 52.9%, according to ABSL. Knowledge-intensive tasks accounted for 58.6% of work in centres in the first quarter of 2025.
That matters for accountants because the evolution of shared services is increasingly an evolution of finance work itself. The old model was about consolidating routine processes. The current model is about managing reporting, controls, planning, analytics, compliance and decision support across borders.
‘They want to deliver value-added, knowledge-intensive services’
The terminology has changed accordingly. The term ‘shared service centre’, or SSC, still suggests a unit designed to process repeatable internal tasks efficiently. Many organisations now prefer ‘business services centre’, ‘global business services’, or GBS, and ‘centres of excellence’. A GBS model typically brings multiple functions, such as finance, HR, procurement, IT and analytics, under a more integrated governance structure.
‘Many of these organisations no longer want to be called shared services centres, because they do not want to be perceived internally as factories for repetitive, simplified tasks,’ Jankie says. ‘They want to be seen as organisations delivering value-added, sophisticated, knowledge-intensive services to the business.’
Piotr Kocot, a partner at PwC Poland, makes the same distinction. ‘When we talk about the original SSC model, we are really describing something built primarily for efficiency,’ he says. ‘The modern GBS model is fundamentally different. It is far more integrated and enterprise-wide, with a strong focus on business outcomes rather than cost metrics alone.’
Regional platforms
Poland provides the clearest data, but the story is a regional one. Different countries compete on their different strengths. Poland offers the largest labour pool and a network of major service cities rather than a single dominant hub. Hungary, Romania, Czechia and Slovakia have cost, infrastructure and language skills advantages. The result is a regional ecosystem rather than a single-country story.
That ecosystem is no longer built simply on being cheaper than Western Europe. The lowest-cost repetitive work remains vulnerable to automation and competition from other locations. Central and Eastern Europe’s advantage increasingly lies in combining cost, skills, proximity, resilience and operating maturity.
‘India will always be cheaper,’ Jankie says. ‘So the less complex, transactional tasks are either being moved to India or being optimised. At the same time, the sector in our region continues to grow because more sophisticated and advanced activities are growing too.’
Finance closer to decisions
For finance professionals, the change is visible in the service mix. Accounts payable, receivables, payroll and order entry remain part of the landscape. The growth is increasingly in areas that require more judgment: record to report, budgeting, financial reporting, consolidation, profitability analysis, internal controls, tax, procurement, capex analysis and working capital management.
However, the opportunity for accountants is not simply that more finance jobs are located in Central and Eastern Europe. Finance professionals in these centres are being asked to support the design and operation of global finance models. That can involve strengthening internal controls, improving data quality, managing close processes, supporting regulatory reporting, designing governance models, analysing working capital and providing decision support to business units far beyond the centre’s home country.
‘The big challenge is to build enterprise-level AI’
Technology reinforces that shift. Some 74.1% of centres had implemented intelligent process automation by early 2025, up from 65.2% a year earlier, according to ABSL. But while adoption is widespread, full automation remains limited. The result is a higher premium on process design, reliable data and strong controls.
AI raises the bar
The practical challenge is whether companies can use AI safely and coherently. Poor data, weak process ownership and fragmented technology pilots can limit the value of automation, especially in finance processes, where accuracy, audit trails and controls matter.
‘There is still a lot of hype and definitional confusion around AI,’ says Aleksandra Stelmach-Gryszka, a partner at PwC Poland. ‘The biggest challenge today is not the technology itself but building a coherent, enterprise-level AI strategy rather than a set of disconnected pilots.’
That gives accountants a practical role. AI depends on clean data, standardised processes, reliable controls and clear ownership. Finance teams and advisers can help identify where automation is safe, where judgment is still needed, and how risks should be monitored. The more complex the service model becomes, the more important governance and accountability become.
Reskilling is becoming more important, not less
The sector’s move up the value chain creates more interesting work for experienced accountants. However, it also raises a training problem: if routine transactional work is automated or moved to lower-cost locations, the traditional career ladder may become harder to climb.
‘This is one of the biggest challenges facing the sector,’ Stelmach-Gryszka says. ‘Career structures are shifting from a traditional pyramid towards a diamond shape. As junior transactional roles decline, so the ability to build more advanced finance skills needs to be addressed more strategically.’
For employers, that means workforce planning, reskilling and professional qualifications are becoming more important, not less. Centres that want to expand further into higher-value work need people who understand accounting fundamentals and can also work with data, technology, controls and business stakeholders.
For finance professionals, the old back-office model is under pressure, but the work replacing it is bringing finance professionals closer to the centre of business decision-making.
