Metso Corporation, the Finland-based processing machinery provider, has decided to establish a financial service centre to centrally handle the financial administration services of its Finnish units. The move is part of efforts to streamline its operations and improve profitability.
Initially, the service centre will provide the basic financial administration processes, such as handling of purchase and sales invoices, payment transactions and financial accounting. The Finnish service centre will operate in two locations, Tampere and Jyvaeskylae. According to preliminary plans, the Jyvaeskylae centre will start operating in the summer and the Tampere centre in the autumn of 2003.
Metso will initiate in the middle of December employer-employee negotiations with personnel working in financial administration and payroll accounting in Metso' s Finnish units. It is expected that after the reorganisation, these tasks, which currently employ about 210 people, will require only about 160.
Metso currently employs approximately 11,000 people in Finland.
The establishment of the Finnish service centre is one of the projects aiming at improving Metso's profitability. Other similar projects include the reorganisation of administrative functions in North America and the utilisation of synergies in the Corporation's purchasing operations. In the rapidly growing markets in China, Metso's business areas are also concentrating their administrative functions and more efficiently using their joint resources, the company reported.
Metso is a global supplier of process industry machinery and systems, as well as know-how and aftermarket services. The Corporation's core businesses are fibre and paper technology (Metso Paper), rock and mineral processing (Metso Minerals) and automation and control technology (Metso Automation), and include numerous activities within the food and beverage manufacturing sector. In 2001, the net sales of Metso Corporation were €4.3 billion and the personnel totalled approximately 30,000.