23 July, 2009 – Kiev – The research “Central and Eastern Europe IT Outsourcing Review 2008” provides an evidence of the rapid development of IT outsourcing services market in the Central and Eastern Europe. The CEE cluster becomes the real player on the global outsourcing market. The clients are getting more interested in the “nearshoring” to the CEE region than  in the offshoring to India or China.  The customers become more sophisticated in their business relationships. There has been a shift from simple cost savings as a motivation to valuing the experience of outsourcing services providers and efficiency of cooperation between the client and provider teams. The advantages of the CEE countries such as cultural compatibility with Europe and North America, technical and business experience are of great value for the clients.

One of the main objectives of the research conducted by the Central and Eastern European Outsourcing Association (CEEOA) with the support of Council of European Professional Informatics Societies (CEPIS) is to provide the holistic view on the potential of the CEE region as a global cluster for provision of nearshore IT outsourcing for the Western European countries and for offshore IT outsourcing for the North American market.
 
“CEE IT Outsourcing Review” is conducted for the second time.  The 2007 research report "Central and Eastern Europe IT Outsourcing Review 2007" indicated that there was a great interest from the clients consuming outsourcing services and research companies.  Following positive feedback for the 2007 Report, the CEEOA decided to commission an annual review on “CEE IT Outsourcing Review”, resulting in this 2008 Report. “CEE IT Outsourcing Review 2008” was conducted during January to July 2009. The national IT and outsourcing associations, largest outsourcing companies, and independent experts were invited as respondents.  The Ukrainian software development company NET Technology Center WEB100 (http://www.web100.com.ua), who provide offshore outsourcing services and deals with the development of IT solutions for B2B communications and business solutions based on Social Media approaches, sponsored the research.

The research examines key development indicators of the IT outsourcing market in the 16 countries of the Central and Eastern Europe region including market value, number of professionals, number of IT companies providing outsourcing services and market rates.

“CEE IT Outsourcing Review” includes the detailed country profiles, experts estimations on the outsourcing market development during the recession period, their opinion on new tendencies and forecasts for the market recovery, profiles of the leading outsourcing companies in the region.

Victor Maznyuk, President of Ukrainian Hi-Tech Initiative, one of the CEEOA founders, noted, “Outsourcing industry in the Central and Eastern Europe does not suffer significantly during the financial crisis. At the outset of 2009 there was insignificant number of the outsourcing companies closures.  The outsourcing industry always expected from the outsourcing players  to meet the client requirements quickly and to control the expenses. Having a great experience of the development on the competitive market of outsourcing services provision, the Eastern European companies learned how to work successfully during the recession period without  taking drastic measures and significant business changes.

As a whole, the crisis produced the effect of improvement in the industry. The number of IT specialists slightly increased, their salary and rental fee underwent insignificant drop. This allowed companies to reduce the cost of services and to be confident during the recession period. Without any doubt I can claim that outsourcing industry is ready for the increase of provided services value in view of the forthcoming economic recovery.”

The official version of the research “Central and Eastern Europe IT Outsourcing Review 2008” is available at the information portal ITONews.eu ( Central and Eastern Europe IT Outsourcing Review 2008) and at the CEEOA website.

About CEEOA

Central and Eastern European Outsourcing Association (CEEOA) (www.ceeoa.org) was founded in 2008.  The members of the association are the leading national IT and Outsourcing associations from the Central and Eastern Europe, among them Baltic Outsourcing Association (BOA), Ukrainian HI-TECH Initiative, Hungarian Service Industry and Outsourcing Association (HOA), Employers’ Association of the Software and Services Industry (ANIS) from Romania, Bulgarian Web Association (BWA) and ASPIRE - Association of IT & Business Process Services Companies (Poland). One of the main objectives of CEEOA is to promote the Central and Eastern European Region as competitive alternative to other Global offshoring destinations, and to increase services delivery quality and volume to the recognized standards.

Contact information:

Inna Sergiychuk
Central and Eastern European Outsourcing Association (CEEOA)

Phone: +38 044 458 1753
Email: innas@hi-tech.org.ua
            ceeoa@ceeoa.org
Web: www.ceeoa.org
          www.hi-tech.org.ua

23 July 2009