Banks Find Tech Talent in Eastern Europe

Barclays Capital has unveiled their plans to recruit 500 IT professionals for a new tech centre in the Ukraine.

BarCap is teaming up with EPAM Systems, the largest and most experienced software engineering services provider in Eastern Europe, which will build and operate the new tech centre in Kyiv. It already employs 50 engineers, but by the end of 2012 that figure will rise to 500. The jobs being created in Kyiv are fairly high-end development roles.

Obviously, it's not a new phenomenon for banks to look to Eastern Europe for IT functions. BarCap itself already has a technology center in Prague, as has Commerzbank captured Czech’s advantage in outsourced software development, Poland is a preferred destination of Citigroup and UBS, where both run their service centers. Deutsche Börse also shifted some 270 tech roles from Frankfurt and Luxembourg to Prague in March.

BarCap has cited strong local technical talent and analytical skills available as the primary motivation for the move.

“Obviously, as it's still a developing country, salaries are likely to be substantially less in the Ukraine, but this is not the only issue," says Rajeena Brar, consultant at IT think-tank Pierre Audoin Consultants. "It allows them to make better use of a global delivery model and there's also a huge pool of innovative IT talent in Eastern Europe that banks are keen to gain access to."

Source: efinancialcareers.co.uk

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Russia Information Technology Report Released

Within the overall current Russian economic pickup, analysts particularly single out Russia’s technology sector and appropriate it one of the leading roles in establishing the favorable business landscape. The latest “Russia Information Technology Report Q2 2010” testifies that the Russian IT market is expected to recover in 2010 from a double-digit contraction in spending on IT products and services suffered in the generically tough 2009.

Below we highlight some extracts from the report touching upon the market segments of IT services and offshore software development. Russia continues to gain momentum and emerges as a strong rival on the global arena.

Software

Russia’s domestic software market is projected at around US$3.1bn in 2010. Spending on software is forecast to return to positive growth territory, after demand was hit in 2009 by the much sharper decline in PC sales. Going forward, the market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 15% to US$5.3bn by 2014, making Russia potentially one of the most significant global software market opportunities.

The domestic software market is forecast at around US$3.1bn in 2009. There are, unsurprisingly, regional disparities, with Moscow some way ahead of its closest rival St Petersburg in terms of enterprise resource planning (ERP) deployments.

IT Services

The IT services market is projected value of US$3.8bn in 2010, which will represent some recovery from 2009 when the market experienced a sharp contraction. The IT services opportunity is forecast to grow to around US$7.2bn by 2014 as the IT market gradually recovers from recent external shocks. The broader use of ICT in government and other sectors will ensure an upward market trajectory in the medium term. Systems integration is the largest IT services component, with as much as one-third of segment revenues and, together with implementation of hardware and software, probably account for about half of all IT services. However, more value-added services such as consulting and applications development are growing fast. Outsourcing is also on the rise, although below the levels in some other Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries.

Source: Companies and Markets

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Barclays Capital to build global technology facility in Kyiv to create Ukraine’s largest and most secure technology centre

Barclays Capital, the investment banking division of Barclays Bank PLC, announced today it has chosen Kyiv as the location for its third global technology centre, adding to those already established in Singapore and Prague. EPAM Systems, the largest and most experience software engineering services provider in Eastern Europe, has been selected as the partner to build and operate Ukraine’s most advanced and secure IT facility, with a team of up to 500 IT professionals in Kyiv by the end of 2012.

Ukraine was chosen because of the exceptional local technical talent and strong analytical skills available. This investment in Kyiv allows Barclays Capital to further diversify its workforce locations and the firm will grow globally by 800 IT professionals in 2010 with continued growth anticipated over the coming years.

“Kyiv is a key strategic centre within our technology growth plans going forward. Utilising the most advanced hardware, software tools and security infrastructure available, the Kyiv centre will be at the leading edge of global competitiveness for quality and for innovation. We are exceedingly impressed with the 50 plus engineers that have already started,” said Sarah Grave, Head of IT EMEA, Prague and Kyiv at Barclays Capital.

The teams will focus on Application Development for in-house projects in C++, Java or C# for a wide range of business applications across the bank, ranging from electronic trading applications to risk management systems. The Kyiv facility has been built by EPAM to operate within the bank’s highly secure continuous service environment, providing 24/7 services to maintain business applications and provide support to the firm’s business users for many mission critical applications.

Barclays Capital and EPAM are investing in Kyiv for the long term, with the technology centre not only providing excellent working conditions, but very clear long-term career paths for the team members in product and application development, management, operation, support, and testing software. Russia along with Ukraine are the two leaders in the CEE region in terms of a number of annual IT graduates and steady rise in the popularity of IT jobs.

“The Kyiv centre will provide the essential front-line services necessary for the operation of Barclays Capital’s global banking business,” said Karl Robb, President EPAM Europe. “This reflects our client’s strong faith in Ukrainian IT talent and in EPAM Systems proven track record of establishing large software engineering teams operating in highly secure environments to the world’s top technology firms and financial institutions.”

Through EPAM, Barclays Capital will make an initial capital investment of more than US$2 million in the highest standard of technology infrastructure from Hewlett Packard, Cisco and Microsoft among others, creating the most secure and state-of-the-art facility in the Ukraine, within EPAM’s premises. The very latest workstation and network equipment will be deployed along with power equipment providing business continuity to operate 24/7.

Notes for Editors

For further information please contact:

Jon Laycock, Barclays Capital Communications +44 207 773 4324 jon.laycock@barcap.com

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EPAM Receives Preferred Supplier Status from Bosch Group

Newtown, PA — June 10, 2010 — EPAM Systems, Inc., the leading software engineering and IT Outsourcing (ITO) provider in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), announced today that it has been selected as a Preferred Supplier of the Bosch Group, an award in recognition and appreciation of EPAM’s outstanding performance in custom software development and application support during the last 3 years.

EPAM has been a development partner to the Bosch Group since 2007, successfully delivering several critical software development projects, the latest achievement being a custom Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) system that replaced multiple legacy applications underpinning the business dealings with tens of thousands of global suppliers and also provides sophisticated SRM specific BI features to Bosch’s executive leadership. The solution was developed and is continually enhanced and supported by EPAM’s engineering teams led by business analysts and engagement management from EPAM Germany, together with engineering teams in the development centers in CEE that provide a balance of domain and process knowledge with technology and management skills in software development and testing. Belarus and Russia locate the largest part of EPAM’s engineering talent pool.

“Any client award or recognition is an honor for the whole staff of EPAM. In this case, given the well-known, stringent levels of excellence and quality that the Bosch Group demands globally in all forms of engineering including software, our teams should be exceedingly proud to be recognized in the upper echelons of Bosch's supplier eco-system with this Preferred Supplier status,” commented Karl Robb, President EU Operations, EVP EPAM Group. “EPAM’s unmatched technology skills, extensive domain knowledge and excellence in distributed delivery of complex software solutions has resulted in a robust, flexible, high throughout, high-availability application that provides our client with significant process optimization and a competitive business edge.”

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European IT Outsourcing Trends: CEE Gains Momentum

IT Sourcing Europe, a European company specializing in nearshore IT outsourcing consultancy as well as market research and analysis, has announced the completion of its “European IT Outsourcing (ITO) Intelligence Report 2010: Central and Eastern Europe”. This is a comprehensive study of the European IT outsourcing demand and market trends. The Report targets at all types of Western European companies who either outsource or plan to outsource their IT functions nearshore.

The IT Sourcing Europe’s Report shows that:

• Outsourcing to Central and Eastern Europe is expected to grow over the next 10 years;

• Investors and management anticipate 30% revenue growth in 2010;

• CEE, above all regions, is expected to leverage its competitive advantage in the high-growth areas of offshoring and nearshoring and possibly move ahead as the most attractive labour arbitrage alternative for Western European clients;

• Low labour costs are not the only grounds for outsourcing. The human capital of the CEE region is one of the primary reasons why Western companies choose to outsource there.

Regarding the major ITO trends, 2010 anticipates a significant change in the European IT Outsourcing landscape:

• More small and mid-sized organizations are expected to outsource their software/web development nearshore, compared to pre-crisis times.

• Additionally, buyers become more demanding and challenge their ITO partners to differentiate their position and value.

• Today’s Western European companies are seeking a combination of speed, cost management and growth supported by business agility and technological innovation.


Source: IT Sourcing Europe

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$50 Billion Saved Through Sourcing

According to a survey conducted by TPI, the leading global sourcing advisory firm, companies have reduced their spend on IT services and business transformation by almost one fifth by turning to outsourcers, thus saving $50 bn.

The firm surveyed 120 companies it had advised on sourcing over the last five years. TPI found its clients saved on average more than 33 per cent. After one-time and ongoing management expenses, the savings averaged more than 17 per cent.

According to TPI chairman and CEO Michael Connors the majority of businesses, 60 per cent, said that reducing costs was "their number one reason for implementing sourcing strategies".

Last year Europe became the world's highest spender on outsourcing, with companies based in Europe spending more on IT outsourcing than those based in any other region of the world.

Source: TPI

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