CASES

Bayer Nordic
For chemical/ pharmaceutical company Bayer Nordic, the establishment of a single accounting and finance department in the Nordic market was a key to success.

Since centralising its head office activities in Lyngby in 1993, Bayer Nordic's turnover has increased by 60% while costs have decreased by 30%. According to Peer Steensbro, CFO of Bayer Nordic in Copenhagen, this success is primarily due to a well functioning Shared Services Centre concept. During initial considerations Copenhagen soon emerged as a clear first choice for Bayer Nordic's financial headquarters. Easy access to major German cities and state-of-the-art airport facilities attracted Bayer Nordic from the outset. But equally important were Copenhagen's many other advantages, such as a top-quality international school and a friendly, English-speaking population.

Objectives
Bayer Nordic centralised its financial operations in 1993 and among the company's objectives were the establishment of identical financial reporting, a uniform accounting structure and a single set of sales statistics for the entire Scandinavian region. Finally, the centre would improve and simplify communication between Bayer Nordic's seven different national centres and administer its regional warehouses.

With the centralised set-up, Bayer Nordic went from having nine legal and organisational entities, seven managing directors and nine boards in 1993 to emerging as a lean business with just four legal entities and a single organisation with one CEO and one board of directors.

COWI 
A leading international consultancy group which works worldwide within engineering, environmental science and economics.

Founded in 1930, COWI has been involved in more than 50,000 projects in 175 countries. The company continues to grow outside of Denmark. With 13 subsidiaries around the world from Tanzania to the United States, COWI has 3,500 employees including engineers, biologists, geologists, economists, surveyors, anthropologists, sociologists and architects.

COWI is the 14th largest consultancy company in Europe and is behind some of the largest infrastructure projects in the world. It has subsidiaries and offices in 35 countries, and project offices in all countries in which the company operates.

The business
The company undertakes consultancy and planning projects on the basis of extensive local knowledge and knowing that it can draw on the international experience of their entire organisation. Its companies in Russia and Hungary excel in the fields of planning and socio-economics, and COWI is one of the main providers of political analyses for decision-makers at the European Commission in Brussels.

In 2005 COWI acquired MUSSMANN Research & Consulting A/S, thereby strengthening its consulting competencies within the fields of healthcare and medico-consultancy services.

Service types:

• Analyses, assessments and audits
• Design
• Maps and geodata products
• Project management
• Client adviser
• IT products and GIS
• Operation and maintenance
• Surveying and inspection

COWI chose to establish its head office in Lyngby-Taarbæk due to the central location within the Greater Copenhagen Region, the very good public transport connections and the excellent dialogue and cooperation with local government.

Topsoe
Topsoe's head office is located in Ravnholm, Lyngby, with the Technical University of Denmark only minutes away. Topsoe's head office has 800 employees working in research laboratories and pilot plants, engineering offices, technical services and sales departments.

The business
Topsoe is a catalyst and technology company. For more than 50 years the company has supplied the full range of catalysts required for the production of ammonia, hydrogen, synthesis gas, methanol, formaldehyde and sulphuric acid. Topsoe holds a position as one of the major catalyst manufacturers serving these industries worldwide. For the petroleum refining industry Topsoe has a portfolio of catalysts for hydro treatment that has found wide acceptance in refineries worldwide, where the catalysts contribute to the production of cleaner fuels to meet future environmental standards.

Flue gas cleaning by filtering out sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and other environmentally harmful compounds has for long been a key area for Topsoe. The catalysts and processes involved have a wide range of applications, from large coal-fired power plants to diesel engines on board ships and heavy vehicles.

The development of new and improved catalysts in Topsoe's research facilities is undertaken in parallel with the development of process technology based on these catalysts. This combination of catalyst and process know-how has given Topsoe a unique standing as the only company capable of supplying catalysts, process licences and engineering designs to the chemical and petrochemical industries.

Recent industrial references include:

• Ammonia: Topsoe is the leading process licenser, having designed more than 50 per cent of the ammonia capacity built since 1990. The two largest plants in the world, Kaltim Pasifik Amoniak in Indonesia and Profertil in Argentina, produce more than 2,000 tons per day.
• Hydrogen: A large number of plants in refineries use Topsoe side-fired tubular reformers, which are capable of operating on natural gas, naphtha or a mixture of the two.
• Synthesis gas: Topsoe autothermal reforming technology has been selected for a large gas-to-liquids plant in South Africa and for two plants in Nigeria and Qatar respectively, each with a capacity of 34,000 barrels per day.
• Methanol: Topsoe has designed one of the largest plants in the world, located in Iran, with a capacity of over 3,000 tons per day.