Finnish Outokumpu celebrates six years in Lithuania: Vilnius is no longer just a dot on the company’s map

In 2017, Vilnius became Outokumpu’s first and only global service centre in Europe. Founded as an operations centre, today Outokumpu Stainless has become an equal partner in a global organisation, offering its services to implement more efficient solutions. The Global Service Centre had 80 professionals when it opened its doors and has now grown to a team of 200.

When opening a service centre in Vilnius, Outokumpu’s main expectation was to consolidate, streamline and automate specific functions.

“The initial goal was financial optimisation. Later, the core functions of procurement, IT projects, and personnel management were also transferred to Lithuania,” explained Inga Lošienė, Chief Human Resources Business Partner at Outokumpu Stainless.

Specialists in Vilnius currently curate production and external processes across Europe and worldwide: the multifunctional centre in Lithuania is responsible for nearly 40 functions, including cyber security, IT systems as well as over €1.3 billion in procurement.

Domas Senovaitis, Country Manager of Outokumpu Stainless Lithuania, emphasises the importance of core processes trusted to Outokumpu Stainless Lithuania:

The GBS centre in Vilnius is also known for its optimisation methodologies. “Lithuanians are the ones who spread and teach LEAN principles at work. And not only those working in the multifunctional centre in Vilnius but also colleagues abroad,” explained D. Senovaitis.

“Invest Lithuania also made a significant contribution to spreading the message in the international arena that Lithuanian IT specialists are of very high calibre. A highly qualified team of programmers, information systems architects, and IT service managers was assembled at the Global Services Centre in Vilnius,” he added.

“Outokumpu is one of the first manufacturing companies in Lithuania to establish its own competence centre. The leading Finnish manufacturing company has gradually grown in Lithuania, indicating that the country perfectly matches the company’s expansion needs. We are pleased that Lithuania is increasingly being discovered by foreign companies looking for an innovative and dynamic location for their core IT competencies. The developed IT infrastructure, highly skilled and driven Lithuanian talents and effective support from local institutions make the country favourably received by international IT leaders,” said Monika Vilkelytė, Head of the GBS team at Invest Lithuania.