The Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (FEBA) Assoc. Prof. Atanas Georgiev took part in the discussion on the links between business and education held during the formal presentation of the Bulgarian Outsourcing Association’s annual report. The Association recently changed its name to Bulgaria’s Association for Innovation, Business Excellence, Services and Technology (AIBEST).

In the Association’s annual report the joint master’s program Outsourcing Projects and Companies of the Economics Faculty and AIBEST has been mentioned as an example of the successful partnership between academia and employers which has resulted in an innovative educational product. The curriculum disciplines and lectures are taught with the participation of managers and experts from the companies - members of AIBEST.

The Association’s annual report presented an analysis of the present state and the latest trends in the outsourcing sector in Bulgaria and outlined its expected development until 2022. The analysis has been conducted by SeeNews and includes data about 583 Bulgarian companies that made use of business processes outsourcing (BPO) and IT outsourcing (ITO) in 2018. The outsourcing sector forms 2% of the labour market in Bulgaria. The figure of employees within it at the end of 2018 is 73 600 – a 9% growth for the last year.