Foreign companies in Romania complain of frequent change of legislation. Find out the other most pressing challenges…

The three major challenges faced by foreign companies present on the Romanian market are the frequent changes of legislation (54 percent), obtaining the appropriate level of support from the authorities (51 percent), and the implementation of legislative requirements (49 percent), shows a study conducted on behalf of TMF Group Romania and released on Monday. In 2014, a third of the managers that took part to study said that finding the right talent was a challenge for them.

”In 2015 we have noticed an increase in the outsourcing activity of the foreign companies present in Romania. The managers appreciate the competitivity of the local market and believe that its bar will be raised, especially given the context of economic growth. That is why they’d rather rely on professionals and delegate accounting, HR & payroll to them, while choosing to gain more time and put more effort into their core business, which is crucial to the evolution of any company”, Camelia Nita, Managing Director TMF Group Romania, stated.

Because of the context, companies are willing to outsource tax compliance and accounting (67 percent), HR & payroll (40 percent), and corporate secretarial (17 percent), in order to be able to focus on their core business. The reason why foreign companies would outsource these services is the desire to gain access to the expertise and experience of professionals (36 percent), followed by the need for increased adaptability to legislative changes (28 percent), and by the desire to obtain a better cost structure for high quality financial or management reporting (19 percent).

Apart from these three major challenges, the most difficult aspects of doing business in Romania are considered the adaptability of the corporate policies to local legislative requirements (41 percent), the sourcing of skilled labour resources and the implementation of standardised processes across jurisdictions (36 percent), and the efficient transposing of local financial reports and of other reports to management (26 percent).

However, most businesses are willing to face these challenges as they benefit from a strong economic recovery in Romania and an impetus to improvement in recent years, which also translates into numerous lucrative opportunities.

The foreign companies on the domestic market perceive in a negative way the tax level and legislation (62 percent), the collaboration with authorities (38 percent) and finding the adequate workforce (33 percent). The aspect that has worsened the most compared to last year is finding the right talent, 33 percent of the participants having said they face difficulties in this respect.

Despite these obstacles, approximately 85 percent of the participants to this study stated that their revenues have grown last year. 31 percent of the managers reported a growth between 5 percent and 10 percent, 26 percent, a growth up to 5 percent, while 14 percent said the growth of their revenues was between 10 and 15 percent and the same percentile mentioned a growth of over 20 percent.

Most of the companies that accepted to join in the research.operate in industries such as retail, real estate, media, pharmaceutical, software, hardware, oil and gas, finance, and network and communications.