New Office in Bratislava Reflects Increased AT&T Presence in Eastern Europe to Support Global Requirements by Enterprise Customers
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia, 18 September, 2007 — AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) today announced the opening of a new service centre in Bratislava to support AT&T’s multinational client base. The new facility further underscores AT&T’s continued investment in its global business, which has seen a planned capital investment of US$750 million for 2007.
The new facility will house up to 350 associates involved in a variety of functions, including provisioning, customer support, carrier management and service ordering to support AT&T’s customer base in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. The facility also will bring AT&T’s total planned workforce in the country to approximately 1,000 by 2008. Since commencing operations in Slovakia, AT&T has invested approximately $12 million in its operations in Slovakia.
The drive for this investment is the need to provide multinational companies with consistent global service and products wherever they operate in the world, on a scalable and flexible basis. Slovakia provides a number of advantages, including access to a well-educated workforce, a location in the heart of the rapidly expanding Central and Eastern European market, an investment-friendly economy and the presence of a number of other multinational organizations from the high-tech and IT industries with similar support functions.
“For AT&T, this expansion reflects the importance of our global business customers”, said Tom Regent, AT&T vice president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “Around the world, we are investing in the people, capacity and services that our multinational clients demand, and our operations in Slovakia complement a network of strategically located service centres around the world with which we can best meet their needs.”
AT&T opened its first centre in Slovakia in 2002, and as the company has outgrown the capacity of its original location, the new office has been opened to complement existing facilities. AT&T operations in Slovakia started as various functions in the EMEA region were consolidated in one central location. Since first opening in Bratislava, AT&T’s operations have evolved into a Worldwide Customer Service Center that employs 650 employees, most of whom have a university degree. It forms part of AT&T’s world wide network of support centers in locations such as Singapore, UK, Australia, and Japan.
Last year, AT&T opened an office in the Eastern Slovak city of Kosice. The Kosice Center specializes in router configuration, network engineering and supply management. These functions demand a high technical knowledge and associated supplier equipment training and certification.
