For this study, we asked 140 managers of HQs in Austria to investigate the questions: How do you assess Austria as an HQ location in times of digitalization? Will this attractiveness change in the future? Are there different perceptions between corporate and divisional HQs, and across industries?

Our main conclusions are as follows:

• Austria as a location for HQs will remain attractive. Austria’s attractiveness as a hub for HQs will not change in the digital age. The majority of study participants thinks that Austria will be able to retain existing HQs or even attract more HQs due to digitalization in the future (only 10% of the participants believe that Austria will lose some of its HQs). Furthermore, the results show that Austria seems particularly well prepared in terms of availability of technological infrastructure and digitalization expertise (e.g., suppliers of technical solutions, startups, incubators or accelerators).

• Potential for improvement still exists in the area of digitalization talent. While the results seem to draw a positive picture so far, they also suggest that access to “digitalization talent”, such as data scientists or digital marketing experts, could be further improved in Austria. We encourage policy makers as well as representatives of universities and universities of applied sciences to further step up their training and educational efforts in the relevant areas.

Have a closer look at the results in the full report here: Report

We are thankful to OeNB and eXplore! for supporting our work and helping us advance the research in this field.