Need to spread risk has led to a marked increase in companies exploring the CEE region for their IT and software development needs. But the growth in outsourced services available from the CEE region is not restricted to IT alone.

The region has highly educated people working within the service sector meaning that there are many BPO opportunities in the region. Many organisations – such as international giants like DHL – have setup very large operations serving the whole of Europe from a CEE base in a variety of different business processes.

But now there are even international lawyers exploring the region for Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO). This story in The Lawyer magazine about US law firm White & Case exploring the relative merits of Poland, Hungary, or the Czech Republic is just such an example.

White & Case already have resource in the Philippines, but are worried about their entire back office being located offshore in a single location – just like many of the IT firms that have explored a risk diversification strategy.

Every executive responsible for outsourcing needs to consider both natural disasters and political risk when locating a function offshore. Though many companies explore outsourcing as a means of reducing cost, if the offshore function fails entirely then it won’t be cost savings that are under discussion, it may be how to save your company.

It is clear that the IT sector in CEE has expanded allowing entrepreneurs to start offering many IT-enabled BPO services. All these new services help the local CEE economy to develop as well as offering a great place for companies to locate new services and to reduce their own risk.