Metso has decided to establish a new Metso Business Services (MBS) centre in Vilnius, Lithuania, initially offering services for the company’s finance operations before moving into logistics.

The investment supports the company’s profitable growth strategy by improving operational excellence and scalability of business services, Metso said, with the opening of the new centre expected to take place during the December quarter.

“The objective is to centralise the related services to the new centre and thus gain benefits from process harmonisation, standardisation and digitalisation,” Metso said.

The centre will employ some tens of experts, but the number of personnel is expected to grow in the coming years, according to the company.

As part of the initiative, employee negotiations have been held at Metso Minerals in Tampere, Finland, to review the possible employee arrangements and implications, with the company deciding to transfer its Financial Services operations entirely from Tampere to Vilnius.

As a result, 28 permanent positions in Metso Financial Services in Tampere will be discontinued in 2020, after a transition period. Metso will support the affected personnel, for example by offering re-employment services and possible relocation support, it said.

Metso’s CFO, Eeva Sipilä, said: “In the past couple of years, Metso has invested in its Tampere operations by, eg strengthening its R&D and manufacturing activities. Currently, we are also exploring options for a new, modern facility in Tampere. However, the best location for the new service centre turned out to be Vilnius, which has a strong service centre culture supporting international companies.

“With this new centre, we aim to improve the efficiency of our business services and increase digitalisation to support Metso’s growth,” she said.

Metso is in the middle of trying to complete the acquisition of fellow mining OEM Outotec.