Why Russia and Ukraine are Hot Sports for Financial Technology Outsourcing

During the last decade, the Central and Eastern European region has been steadily gaining momentum as a hot spot for IT services and software outsourcing. Such leading high-tech firms as Intel, Sun, IBM, and most recently Google have long recognized the region as a lucrative destination. What makes CEE attractive and why companies should put it on the list of preferred outsourcing hubs? In our today’s post we’ll try to analyze two countries which are particularly strong in software development – Eastern Europe’s Russia and Ukraine – in terms of financial technology outsourcing.

The basic criteria that both high-tech and financial firms look at when evaluating an outsourcing destination are largely the same: labor market, infrastructure, legal/IP protection, local risks and cultural/work ethics flavor. Although one important, but often overlooked, detail that make outsourcing for financial companies more difficult is industry-specific knowledge – in today’s fast-paced world, even outstanding technology skills are often not enough.

Industry-specific Knowledge. Russia’s profile as a financial center steadily rises. Many popular products, including portfolio systems, FIX engines, and analytical and risk management packages have been and continue to be developed in the region. While Russia does not yet have big-hit stories like i-flex, there is a surprising number of leading financial technology firms who do development in Russia, which is a positive trend showing the region’s vast potential. Ukraine is also changing its image attracting more and more global financial leaders like Barclays Capital as the latest example.

Labor Pool and Costs in Russia and Ukraine. CEE’s advantage is in its cost-effectiveness coupled at the same time with high standards of delivery. The main source for qualified IT labor is universities with 50-70% of the labor pool composed of computer science and math graduates. The best technical universities are based in cities that participated in the state-sponsored Soviet programs of cybernetics studies: in Russia such key centers are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Nizhniy Novgorod, Yekaterinburg, and Tomsk; in Ukraine the key centers are Kiev, Kharkov, and Lvov. Moscow tops the chart for labor costs, St. Petersburg follows closely with 10-20% lower rates. In more rural areas, average engineer salaries may drop as much as 50%. Ukrainian IT salaries are slightly lower than in Russia but vary by region.

Security and Intellectual Property Risks. Contrary to popular belief, Intellectual Property is highly respected among IT providers both in Russia and Ukraine. Both countries have recently upgraded their IP laws making them compatible with the Western tradition.

All in all, Russia and Ukraine are known as excellent R&D destinations for a good reason – superior technical talent and a can-do attitude for the most complicated tasks. Basic operational commodities, such as reasonable costs, reliable infrastructure, telecommunications and a legal system are now widely available throughout the region and attract more global financial firms.

Source: ITO News

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Eastern Europe to Dominate the IT / ICT Outsourcing Space

Eastern Europe, already a popular and trusted nearshore location for continental Europe outsourced functions, is sweepingly ramping up as a hotspot for global players luring more and more software outsourcing contracts. Just consider the latest activity in the region: Wipro opened its development center in Budapest (in December 2010) and chemical producer Celenase has recently contracted IBM to run its financial shared services center in Hungary.

So what are the driving forces that make the Eastern European region so attractive? A shift in economic patterns, rise in tertiary occupations, improved FDI and government initiatives (lowered tax rates) to promote trade, and improvement of national fiscals are the underlying factors for increased ICT and are the major drivers for IT services and software development. Eastern Europe also ranks high in terms of work ethics and cultural sensitivity, adding to the region’s attractiveness as a base for outsourced activity.

And of course not to forget about the cost advantage. According to the industry experts, the cost advantage offered by Central and Eastern European firms to nearshore and offshore buyers is comparable with that offered by China.

Summing up, it is now highly likely that Eastern Europe will move out from being an ‘emerging destination’ to a ‘key destination’ for IT outsourcing activity. The region is expected to experience a new surge of demand from Western Europe and at the same time gain a ‘hard to ignore space’ on the world arena in the coming years.

Source: SourcingNotes

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European Trends in ITO for 2011 (Part I)

Well, another year is here with its new perspectives, new hopes, new aspirations, as well as new plans and strategies. At the very start of the year we bring to your notice IT Sourcing Europe’s outlook on the European ITO market and future development trends and relations between Western European ITO services buyers and Eastern European ITO services providers.

Judging from the perspective of ITO services buyers, the following trends and changes are anticipated in 2011:

One of the most vivid tendencies – which came from 2010 with over 9 billion Euro in contract value and is anticipated to further increase in 2011 – is the increased demand for outsourced IT services from the public sector. The demand for cost-effective outsourcing opportunities in this sector is primarily explained due to recent turmoil in such countries as Ireland and Greece as well as economic uncertainties in other EU member states.

Secondly, there is traced a shift from mere cost saving to access to qualified and lower-cost IT resources. Already in the previous year Western Europe faced a significant shortage in skills and resources in the branch of software development; Eastern Europe, on the contrary, showed a significant increase in IT workforce led by Romania with a 12.33% growth in the number of IT specialists and followed by Ukraine with a 9.51% growth.

Closely connected with the above comes the third trend: nearshoring will hit the mainstream. Of almost 2,000 non-outsourcing companies polled in the survey, more than 22% plan to transfer their IT/software development nearshore versus only 11% of those who plan to outsource offshore.

And last but not least, service integration will help achieve innovation. In 2011, more Western European IT leaders are expected to realize the importance of integrating the outsourced project management, orchestration and delivery, thus gaining full control of their sourced projects.

In the second part of the post we’ll dwell on the trends and changes which are anticipated in 2011 judging from the perspective of ITO services providers.

Source: EzineMark

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Outsourcing Market is Ramping Up Challenging Established Locations

A newly released study by Duke University's Offshoring Research Network and PricewaterhouseCoopers has revealed that the long established outsourcing locations India and North America are steadily surrendering in the space of outsourced software development. Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia, on the contrary, are picking up steam and emerge as strong global rivals. The challenging service areas are named contact centers, business process outsourcing, and information technology outsourcing. The results are based on a global survey conducted among 514 outsourcing service providers in 50 countries.

The survey’s findings clearly indicate the growing potential of the outsourcing market with offshoring continues constituting its biggest part – the market continues to expand globally driving competition and more cost-effective services. "Growing competition has transformed the outsourcing industry into a global race for market share," PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Managing Director Charles Aird noted in his statement.

Other facts of interest according to the survey include:

• A large number of service providers expect to begin new software development and IT-service contracts over the next several years. Overall, 62 percent of service providers said they plan to expand the scale of their existing offerings.

• The survey also found that the economic crisis of 2009 reemphasized the importance of cost savings and efficiency improvement as the top strategic reasons for outsourcing, followed by access to qualified personnel.

Source: Outsourcing-Russia.com

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Europe Embarks On the Outsourcing Spree

According tо the recent report by Gartner, world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, IT outsourcing is strongly gaining momentum in Western Europe, the second largest market after the US. The survey results show, that more than half, exactly 53%, of organizations in Europe plan to increase outsourcing initiatives in 2010, and 40% anticipate to surge spending on external IT services. The online survey was conducted among 206 organizations in Europe during in the first quarter of 2010.

At the same time, the analyst firm does not see it all in bright colors and warns service providers of potential constraints. With IT budgets still tight, European organizations expect their vendors to deliver tangible cost reductions. The market opportunities are large, but the customer expectations are also high. European organizations are looking for outsourcers to provide more than “my mess for less”, says the report.

Outsourcing upside creates excellent opportunities for nearshore service providers. Nearshoring has a row of advantages, such as time and cultural proximity, cutting travel costs, etc. In such situation, established Central and Eastern European vendors, which bring about the whole bunch of nearshoring advantages, come as a natural choice for many Western European clients.

Source: V3.co.uk

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Europe Tops List of Safest Outsourcing Spots

In the context of global sourcing and new emerging locations, security and safety concerns are becoming the top issue for companies considering outsourcing their IT projects to cost efficient locations offshore. In this respect, the annual research conducted by the Black Book of Outsourcing with the rankings of the most dangerous / safest outsourcing spots around the globe attracts great attention among companies as a reference point for long-term business strategies.

The latest research for 2010 interviewed 3,100 corporate development leaders, including more than 400 outsourcing customers, to indicate their company's inclination to consider specific offshore locations for outsourcing (including IT outsourcing and BPO). The survey asked respondents to rank those cities on various perceived threats and weaknesses, including geopolitical risk, terrorist threats, climate concerns, legal maturity, environmental waste and pollution, IT and telecom infrastructure security, and crime rates.

According to the 2010 results, Central/Eastern Europe (CEE) tops the list of the safest offshore locations, while Pakistan, Colombia, and Mexico top The Black Book of Outsourcing's 2010 list of the most dangerous places for offshoring.

The results are particularly important for companies engaged in high-risk business, like finance, where security, stability, IP and data protection come first and often overweigh cost factors. According to the published survey results, CEE proves an ideal secure and cost-efficient spot for outsourcing IT projects. This has already been marked by some leading companies who engaged with regional providers. One of the latest examples is the decision of the investment giant Barclays Capital to set up its IT Center in Kyiv and select EPAM Systems, the leading software engineering services provider in Central/Eastern Europe, as its technology partner for offshore software development. Ukraine’s capital Kyiv is among the Top Ten safest cities for offshore outsourcing.

"Even the perception of risk factors such as high crime, corruption or terrorist threat can paralyze a region's offshore business momentum," says Douglas Brown, Research Director of Datamonitor's Black Book. "That required sense of security can be destroyed, even in the most vibrant and progressive of communities, entirely on what is perceived by the corporate decision maker."

Source: CIO

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EquaTerra Takes the Pulse of European Outsourcing Market

EquaTerra, a global sourcing advisory firm with expertise in information technology (IT), finance, human resources and other business processes, has conducted research for Computer Weekly readers that analyses the market and trends for IT outsourcing in Western Europe. The report is taken from EquaTerra's global business and information technology pulse survey, a quarterly survey of leading outsourcing service providers and EquaTerra’s own client-facing advisors.

Some of the findings of the report are:

Demand growth for BPO and ITO slips slightly in 2Q10. Inherent outsourcing demand remains positive and is growing overall but still many buyers remain cautious in their efforts, especially what concerns upfront investments and complex deal arrangements.

Significant challenges for the providers are improving existing contract profitability and expanding scope with existing clients. Demand for non-outsourcing services like consulting and packaged software services is still weak. Providers cite long-term opportunities to make money from buyers’ cloud computing initiatives but it is unclear which providers will benefit the most and how much these new revenue streams will offset declining traditional systems integration work and potentially the loss of some traditional outsourcing business.

Buyers continue their efforts to reduce operating costs and overhaul service delivery models, with internal process improvement and alternative delivery models like shared services gaining in importance as change agents. Interest in cloud-based services such as SaaS is gaining traction.

The use of multi-sourcing or multiple outsourcing service providers in adjacent and complementary functional areas continues to grow. The growth of cloud computing opportunities to complement, extend, and in some cases supplant traditional outsourcing will further drive more multi-sourcing, at least in the short to medium term, as new service providers come to market.

Source: ComputerWeekly

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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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ITO Firms in CEE Prioritize Security of Clients’ Data

Risk mitigation in IT outsourcing engagements has become a hot topic recently. It was scrutinized in a recent Everest Group’s whitepaper titled "Emerging Markets Suppliers: A valuable Lever for Risks Diversification" providing a list of recommended, “must-know” vendors in 6 ITO destinations that compete with India. Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) was represented by its leading full-cycle software services provider EPAM Systems.

At a webinar earlier this year, Everest announced their outsourcing market forecast for 2010, where they stated that in a recovering economy the key ITO vendors would transform their approach in order to shift more risks away from the clients.

With delivery models and contracting structures being updated and adjusted to the buyers’ needs and expectations, the leading service providers keep investing into safeguarding their customers’ information. After the assessment of its multiple CEE development centers for the SAS 70 Type II requirements, EPAM took the lead in security in the CEE’s ITO industry. Last week the company announced that it had also received ISO/IEC 27001:2005 certification for its Information Security Management System (ISMS). The scope of the certificate is “Outsourced software development in accordance with the latest version of the Statement of Applicability.”

"This certificate demonstrates EPAM’s dedication to protecting its clients’ information assets and addressing security concerns by defining and maintaining the strictest security policies and verifying their adherence by recognized industry standards. “ISO 270001:2005 and existing SAS 70 Type II certification combined continue our position of leadership in security for our industry and region and are vital parts of EPAM’s global strategy,” stated Balazs Fejes, EPAM CTO.

László Adlovits, Country Manager at Det Norske Veritas, said: “During this process, it was clear that EPAM surpassed the required level and showed a mature and well implemented information security management system."

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New Horizons for Outsourcing

The recent world economic recession, when everybody was trying to stay afloat, made many cut their IT budgets. Now, when the worst seems to be behind, companies are starting moving forward with renewed trust in the stability and growth of economic markets, leading to increased outsourcing activity. But there’s been a certain shift in how corporations regard outsourcing trying to answer why, what, how and where questions. Why do we outsource? Why do we offshore? What do we actually get in return? How do we really benefit? How, if at all, do our customers benefit?

Michael Morris, Head of Outsourcing Search and Selection at Essentia Consulting, is sure that outsourcing is back now, it has weathered the economic storm and businesses will return to using outsourcing to recapture innovation and maximize their ROI in 2010. But if some five years ago outsourcing was considered primarily a good way to reduce costs, from 2010 onwards, with new deals signed and new management potentially in place in many companies, everything is screaming return on investment (ROI). Clients are demanding quicker, more transparent results and this development will shape the majority of future outsourcing deals.

As for offshoring, India still remains its hotbed but with more options available. With more delivery centers in Eastern Europe as well as in Asia, Central and South America the competition between outsourcing providers will strengthen and that will “drive a focus on services differentiation, bundling of services and greater intimacy with customers through outsourcing relationship management (ORM)” as Matt Shocklee, COP, president and CEO of Global Sourcing Optimisation Services and IAOP US Ambassador, says.

Source: EUcommerz

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Outsourcing Potential 2010 – How Does It Look Like? (Part 2)

Another pronounced trend of the coming year shows up in the shifting global markets. The survey by the global consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Duke University's Offshoring Research Network stated that the outsourcing industry is transforming due to the emergence of new providers around the world and efforts of existing outsourcers to expand into new markets. "Outsourcing companies in North America and India, which have long dominated the industry, are being challenged by competition from Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia in service areas such as contact centers, business process outsourcing, and information technology outsourcing," the survey revealed.

Near-shoring has gained momentum among companies considering outsourcing services. Growing competition has transformed outsourcing industry into a global race for market share where emerging economies are rapidly seeking to expand in the sector. In particular, Central and Eastern Europe has revealed its potential as a strong rival grabbing its market share on the global scale. In our previous post we’ve drawn your attention to the latest Everest research featuring EPAM Systems as a leading vendor from the CEE region challenging some established global leaders in the software outsourcing industry. This year’s NOA predictions also touch upon this trend noting “Russia will increase in prominence on the world stage”.

Apart from that, NOA's annual predictions scrutinize over such issues as public sector deals growth, growth of green technologies and 'green sourcing' arrangements, innovation in services and products, and a declining trend in signing big contracts.

Douglas Hayward, analyst at IDC, draws our attention to the shift in the outsourcing models and states that in the new decade outsourcing suppliers will increasingly be paid depending on the volume of services used. "2010 will see a strong increase in the use of outcome-based payment models, as enterprises extract better value from service providers. Outcome-based models allow enterprises more easily to scale service consumption up or down, making costs more variable. […] They will cease to be seen as experimental, and will become accepted as a normal part of the contract toolkit," he says.

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Indian Outsourcers Get Shivers As Local Rivals Push Up

A new trend is rapidly developing on the current global IT market – instead of sending all projects to offshore locations like India, emerging local rivals are becoming more and more attractive for big outsourcing customers. Let’s analyze the reasons why.

Globalization imposes tougher competition on the market, solely performance and capacity are no more enough, and even cost issues presently lose ground as the key differentiating factor. Customers seek quality, innovation, and value to their business. That is exactly what rivals in emerging outsourcing destinations like Central and Eastern Europe are staking on and are eager to provide. An increasing amount of companies are looking closer at local vendors who are winning through mature software engineering processes, reputation, and IT service quality. This is also recognized by leading analyst firms, including Everest.

“For many customers who already have significant presence in offshore locations like India, it’s a risk diversification,” said Jimit Arora, Research Director of outsourcing advisory firm Everest Group. “Some customers having 70-80 per cent of their offshore resources in India are realizing that they need to look at the third category of suppliers that are local and niche,” he added.

Everest has recently researched six emerging destinations mature enough to be considered as viable alternatives to the India-centric outsourcing model. Scrutinizing one of the world’s top 3 outsourcing locations – Central and Eastern Europe - the report features EPAM Systems as a leading, “must-know” IT outsourcing services supplier with roots in the region.

A free copy of Everest’s “Emerging Market Suppliers: A Valuable Lever for Risk Diversification” report is available at http://epam.com/analysts.htm.

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Becoming a Preferred Outsourcing Destination

New sourcing destinations which form regional clusters are springing up all over the globe quite often now. Companies looking for alternative to India locations have a wide choice of virtually any sourcing region to do business. And countries within these clusters face the challenge of becoming a preferred sourcing location.

Here are some of the key success strategies for winning destinations:

- focus on establishing favorable tax and regulatory environments, implementing government incentives, investing in high quality infrastructure, reducing attrition, and facilitating access to a qualified workforce;

- learn from the experience of established destinations noting the policies, incentives and initiatives these former emerging locations undertook to achieve success;

- ensure a sustainable supply of qualified labor. Countries should have a workforce strategy to continue to scale as well as diversify their skills sets;

- find your niche. As the playing field becomes more competitive, it’s necessary for countries to differentiate not only on the basis of cost, quality etc. but also in terms of the depth, specialization and expertise of their workforce;

- let the world know about you. Ensuring global visibility — especially in prime markets such as US and Europe — should be top priority. Branding that accentuates the region’s uniqueness can have a great impact;

- encourage import of expert resources from established locations and target markets, especially if there are ex-pat’s who can be convinced to return home. Inviting well-known industry evangelists (read consultants, analysts, etc) is also very effective in building goodwill and positive buzz;

- promote benefits of outsourcing industry within the local market. This can be done by convincing domestic or multinational firms to outsource locally or “carve out“their internal operations. Local service providers can be incentivized to build a domestic market.

Source: Global Services

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Survey: IT Development Budgets On the Rise

According to the latest IDC survey, IT development projects are on the rise in 2009.

With more than 6,000 respondents surveyed, there’s a pronounced tendency that IT budgets are increasing this year and the overall IT landscape looks more promising. Respondents were senior business leaders and software development professionals from independent software vendors, enterprises with more than 500 employees, SMEs, and other organizations for which software development was a key business focus or priority.

The major takeaways from the survey read:
• 38% of companies are outsourcing "some software development" to India, China, Ukraine and other Eastern European countries;
• 71% of respondents said new product or software development was a "top priority" for their organization;
• 51% of respondents said "saving money" was a top priority for their organization;
• 42% of respondents said agile methodologies were their software development models of choice,
• 36% of companies use Capability Maturity Model Integration as their process maturity and quality model;
• 62% of respondents focus their software development efforts on enterprise applications;
• 51% of respondents focus their software development efforts on Web-based applications;
• 42% of organizations execute software customization and integration in different systems and environments.

Rona Shuchat, director of Application Outsourcing Services at IDC, sums up: "During this economic recession, the competitive application outsourcing arena has become even more fierce as customers push for lower cost and improved operational efficiencies. Flexible, consistent delivery and management models, alongside scalability, reliability and high performance, will be critical as new hosting models become viable alternatives to the enterprise."

Source: Integration Developer News

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New Jersey's Fastest Growing Firms

NJBIZ, state's weekly business journal, recently announced the fifty fastest growing companies. Companies were ranked based upon both dollar growth and percentage growth in revenues from 2005 through 2007.

EPAM Systems, Inc., an IT outsourcing leader with subs in Central and Eastern Europe, was ranked 5th on this year’s list. Founded and headquartered in Lawrenceville, EPAM made the New Jersey's Finest list for the 3rd consecutive year, showing sustainable business growth.

"We are proud to be among the winners of this prestigious award. EPAM's technology expertise and global presence that help companies outsource critical IT needs in a timely and cost-effective manner — in our case, worldwide — have served us, and our clients, well. Congratulations to all the winners! We are committed to continue bringing value to our clients, while growing EPAM Systems in this difficult business environment," stated Arkadiy Dobkin, EPAM President and CEO.

Source: epam.com

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European Outsourcing: current state of affairs and future trends

TEAM International shared some findings of the latest Annual Outsourcing Survey conducted by Ernst & Young. The 2008 survey questioned more than 600 members of upper management in the largest European companies with a turnover of at least 100 million Euros. The survey came up with these findings:

• 70% of respondents reported outsourcing at least one business process to lower-cost countries;

• 49% of respondents agreed that offshore outsourcing served as an efficient cost saving tool;

• 33% pointed to better quality through hiring the specialists among the major reasons for outsourcing;

• At the industry level, the finance industry is reported to be the most mature in adopting outsourcing; banking is considered to be the most focused on IT and telecommunications outsourcing with a 75% take-up rate;

• Medium-sized companies and multinationals are the major users of offshore outsourcing;

• The majority of respondents generally report positive experience they have had with offshore outsourcing.

• 20% of European companies admitted intending to increase their outsourcing level within the next two years.


Source: Ernst and Young

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IT Outsourcing on the Rise despite Global Economic Downturn

The global economic downturn is placing pressure on more and more companies to cut costs and maximize profits, leading them to outsource IT functions. According to research from Gartner, the IT services market will continue to grow in 2008, with spending on IT functions estimated to increase by 9.5%, reaching $819 billion. The strength of the IT services market can be further exemplified by the decrease in profit warnings among UK IT software service providers; in the hardware and equipment sector, only twelve profit warnings were issued in the second quarter compared to the twenty in the first quarter. Outsourcing consultants claim that companies seeking to reduce expenditures (as a result of these unfavorable economic conditions) should not even consider reducing spending on projects that affect the operation of a business, such as outsourcing contracts and major IT implementations.

So far, IT service providers have been left unscathed from any IT budget cuts. It is highly unlikely for long-term projects to be postponed due to economic factors. Additionally, small businesses continue to increase spending on IT, hoping to increase business and decreases dependence on manual processes (thereby reducing labor costs).

In this period of economic downturn, purchasers looking to outsource are increasingly searching for value-oriented contracts, heading towards locations in the east, hoping to save big and to eliminate the need to transfer staff. Although India has traditionally been seen as the place to outsource, China, Morocco, and Hungary are rapidly growing in popularity. In fact, the twenty largest IT services suppliers in the UK opened 21 new global delivery centers in January 2007, with four set up in China, three in Eastern Europe, three in Morocco, and only two in India.

Seeing as we are in a downturn rather than recession, companies have the resources to outsource; it is an expense they are willing to invest in, knowing the future benefits and savings. When outsourcing, companies should find IT service providers capable of catering to their needs; the provider should have quality resources and tools to find a strategic solution to the company’s needs. Similarly, finding a provider with a skilled tech team and personnel capable of communicating with the company and listening to its demands is of utmost importance in developing a quality product.

Both vendor and customer should look at this economic downturn as an occasion to do business more rigorously.

Source: ComputerWeekly

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EPAM under full steam to true full service in Finance

On the third of April, 2008 EPAM Systems Inc. announced the acquisition of B2BITS Corp, a provider of solutions and consulting services to capital markets organizations within the financial services sector. Since its foundation in 2000 B2BITS has been known for its unexceptionable performance delivering pre-built solutions, customizable frameworks, specialized testing tools as well as process consulting for Client Connectivity, FIX, FX, Options, Fixed Income, market data feeds, exchange gateways and electronic payment services.

The acquisition allowed EPAM to combine the extensive domain knowledge of B2BITS and EPAM’s high- qualified team of software engineers developing, maintaining and supporting mission critical applications for the Financial industry. That’s good news for both current and prospective clients from financial services industry as EPAM now covers the entire value chain starting from expert analysis and consultancy to the development, maintenance and 24/7 support.

As Mark Bisker, the head of EPAM’s new Competency Center and CEO of B2BITS Corp, said: “By leveraging the scale and experience of the most disciplined and efficient software engineering organization in the region, we can now better leverage our domain knowledge and consulting skills.” In his turn Arkadiy Dobkin, CEO and President of EPAM Systems, noted: “The management and consulting teams from B2BITS significantly enhance EPAM’s expertise and capabilities in this important market segment”.

Source: EPAM Systems, Inc.

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