VILNIUS, Lithuania, September 24, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

According to Invest Lithuania, the country's investment promotion agency, Lithuania's Global Business Services (GBS) sector grew 17% last year and is now comprised of 70 centres employing 15,500 specialists. The annual, already Lithuania's 4th Global Business Services Report shows that this Baltic nation - whose population of 2.8 million is both highly educated and driven - now boasts a mature GBS sector that adds value to the operations of global business across a wide range of functions.

According to the Report, as much as 2.3% of the workforce is comprised of robots. This is due to the dramatic rise of award-winning Robotic Process Automation (RPA) processes within the sector. 67% of GBS centres deploy RPA, with 48% developing bespoke solutions in-house. On average, there are 31 robots operating in GBS centres in Lithuania, and Western Union's Vilnius facility recently won the Top Robotics / RPA Implementation Award for the CEE region at both the USA - Europe Shared Services Awards 2018 and the CEE Shared Services and Outsourcing awards 2018.

Another defining factor of the sector is the variety of functions and tasks trusted to Lithuanian teams. 85% of Lithuanian GBS centres are multifunctional, with IT (29%), Customer Operations (25%) and F&A (17%) the most common. Other notable functions entrusted to Lithuanian teams include HR, Engineering, Legal Services, Anti-Money Laundering, Auditing and Robotics. Local divisions of such companies as Nasdaq, Danske Bank, WIX, Uber and Telia are developing core products for their respective parent companies from Vilnius.

According to OECD, Lithuania is ranked 1st in Europe (and 4th globally!) for the number of people with tertiary education. The country's universities have strong positions in both STEM and Humanities, and multiple businesses are working hand-in-hand with universities to offer a wide range of opportunities to future specialists. These include sector-specific language courses, programming and AI labs, career counselling, not to mention internship opportunities across a range of cutting-edge fields.

To learn more about what makes the sector tick in Lithuania, download this year's Business Services Report - https://bit.ly/2DdcYHy .

SOURCE Invest Lithuania