Monday, March 15, 2010

EU Enlargement and Nearshoring

With the accession of new Member states in 2004 and 2007 the European Union grew to 27 countries. The trend of nearshore software development outsourcing to Central Europe that started in mid 1990s, became much stronger. Initially it started as outsourcing smaller projects by small and mid-size companies. Shortly, the region has arrested the attention of the global IT players like Capgemini and EPAM Systems, therefore enhancing the scope of the projects outsourced, and enabling the region to compete with well-established Indian and Chinese IT providers.

According to the recent data provided by Deutsche Bank Research, the overwhelming majority of German, Swiss and Austrian vendors still outsource their IT activities to Czech, Slovak Republic, and Hungary preferring them to more remote Asian destinations. However, the impact of EU enlargement on the Central European outsourcing market is forked. While expanding the market of IT services, fostering both demand and supply growth, it may lead to labour costs increase, consequently rising the development costs. And as Natasha Starkell, CEO of Goal Europe has noted the “higher wages will push offshoring further east”, namely to Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Product development, software testing, and application reengineering are already in high demand in the emerging markets.

Eastern Europe enjoys cultural and geo proximity to Western Europe, has a large pool of highly educated professionals, especially in the field of math, science, physics, and IT which makes it an attractive nearshore outsourcing destination for EU enterprises. Moreover, as baby boomers retire and Western Europe runs out of engineers and other highly qualified staff, even more IT work will move to Eastern Europe.

Source: levhouse.com

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