High knowledge, competence key for success of Bulgaria’s outsourcing sector – McKinsey

A high level of knowledge and competence are crucial for the success of the outsourcing and offshoring sectors in Bulgaria, Peter Peters, a principal in global IT practice at consulting firm McKinsey and Company, said on November 11 2010.

“Bulgaria can develop its outsourcing and offshoring sectors not so much through advertising low-cost, but through high knowledge and competence,” Peters said at a conference entitled “Realising the Potential – Bulgaria on the Outsourcing and Off-shoring Map”.

According to Peters, the country needs to diversify the industries it targets with its outsourcing services.
 
“Bulgaria can become the Silicon Valley of the Black Sea [area] with the united efforts of business, the government and academia,” Peters said.

To become a leading outsourcing/offshoring destination by 2020, Bulgaria needs a two-pronged strategy, he said.

The first would be to make tactical changes as soon as possible, such as raising funding from public/private sponsors; initiatives to improve the availability of suitable talent; identification of focus areas for local outsourcing/offshoring players and ensuring targeted demand stimulation for each focus area.

The second would be structural changes in the long term: structural changes to the education system to increase, two or threefold, the number of suitable engineers produced by Bulgaria; setting up a programme to encourage Bulgarian expatriates to return to the country; and assuring competitive costs of operations driven by a larger suitable talent pool and highly reliable, cost-effective enabling infrastructure.

A McKinsey survey in 139 countries worldwide identified five factors that would encourage the development of the outsourcing industry: infrastructure, financial capital, business environment, human capital and local demand. According to the survey, Bulgaria scored below average in the five factors.

The Sofia Echo and SeeNews were media partners of the event, which was hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Bulgaria, the InvestBulgaria Agency and Colliers International.

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