A new industry report says IT outsourcing to Eastern Europe is up to 3.7 billion euros annually. That’s a 23 percent rise over last year, as Western European tech companies discover the benefits in their backyard.
Kosovar interns working on a system to allow the country's nascent law enforcement authorities to track guns. It's a pretty big responsibility for interns, and some even work for free in exchange for training on the latest software development platforms.
Outsourcing is booming
Despite being in one of Europe's most improvised nations, these young people are poised to enter a gold rush happening in central and eastern Europe. IT outsourcing in the region has become a huge business - 3 billion euros ($3.9 billion) in 2009, and it's expected to hit 3.7 billion euros this year, according to a new report from the Central and Eastern European Outsourcing Association, an industry trade group.
Keen to cut costs, Western European companies are increasingly sending tech work eastward. Deutsche Bank has some of its software developed in Ukraine, while Siemens has a research and development center in Romania. Those countries also are seeing the largest growth in IT outsourcing.
Furthermore, with the exception of the Baltic states, countries from Bulgaria to Slovakia defied an economic downturn as the number of the number of IT specialists working for outsourcing companies grew to almost 100,000 people, according to the report.
It's quite a big number and it means it outsourcing and services in Central and Eastern Europe are developing very fast," says Andriy Cherevko of Softserve, an outsourcing firm that sponsored the study.