It’s tough for businesses to remain competitive when they need the newest technology and don’t have the budgets to employ full-time in-house developers. There is a great solution, however – outsourcing development needs. In recent years, a lot of outsourcing occurred with IT firms in India. Since that time, though, there have been a number of emerging markets in a wide range of countries, including Brazil, Vietnam, Malaysia, and, probably most prominent, Eastern Europe.
In these countries, a growing number of IT pros are now university-educated in their home countries and are taking their places in local development firms. Governments in these countries are supporting IT degrees in their public universities, and those institutions are gaining great reputations on a global scale. Businesses that need to compete with the latest technological solutions can find them quite reasonably in these emerging markets.
Here are seven of the most current emerging markets where businesses can find firms with IT specialists who can provide the development solutions that will keep them competitive in their niches and grow their market shares.
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Bulgaria
Even though it may one of the poorer Eastern European countries, its growing IT expertise is now recognized, and the attraction of low cost is certainly there. Software development firms are fast approaching competitiveness in new technologies (big data, AI/ML, blockchain, etc.). The one drawback in this market is that it does not seem to be as current on security measures as others are, and having them work with highly sensitive information could be risky.
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Brazil
Public universities have placed high emphasis on IT curricula, supported with public funds, and this country is now graduating some highly skilled specialists who are opening up their own software consulting firms or joining startup firms. These are young, skilled, and hungry experts who are eager to perform for companies that need their skills.
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Czech Republic
This country remains a major player in the outsourcing IT market. Costs are relatively low. Companies can find globally competitive development firms in most major cities – Prague, Brno, and Ostrava. Firms offer a variety of customized services and work with businesses all over the world.
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Egypt
Costs remain low, while the pool of IT graduates remains high. 50% of Egypt’s population is below the age of 25, and over 100,000 are working in the outsourcing sector, all of whom are English-proficient in order to serve a large foreign pool of businesses. These are talented, skilled young people who have expertise that foreign companies need.
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Ukraine
This is one of the most attractive outsourcing locations in the world. There seems to be a nationwide interest in IT, wholly supported by the government in terms of investments in colleges and universities, and there are well over 1,000 vendor firms, offering all types of services, ranging from web development to R&D centers housing expert software engineers. In fact, there are over 170 institutes and universities in Ukraine that, together, graduate about 16,000 IT specialists each year.
In terms of cost, Ukraine averages are below those of Poland and Rumania, two major competitors in the IT outsourcing market, while still providing services that meet or exceed those of the other countries.
As proof of the value of Ukraine’s standing in the market place, Samsung and Microsoft have operated R&D centers there for a number of years; the security firm Ring does the same. And Ukrainian web developers make up the core team behind Magento.
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Romania
This country’s outsourcing resources lie heavily in web development and fintech. In fact, among European countries, it ranks 6th relative to software development specialists. Computer science is taught in polytechnic universities, technical institutes and some 170 tech colleges.
In terms of fintech, large financial institutions such as Deutsche Bank and UBS outsource software development to firms in Romania. They are somewhat pricier than firms in other Eastern European countries, but major companies like IBM and Oracle find them to be solid players in emerging IT markets.
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Poland
Poland has a longer history of being an outsourcer than most other emerging markets and has been engaged in R&D development for some of the world’s giants, including Microsoft and Oracle. 40% of Poland’s millennial population holds university degrees, and about 140,000 are software specialists; some 55,000 of those specialists work for outsourcing vendors.
Costs for outsourcing in Poland fall within the median range, from $39 - $79/hour.
A Growing Option
Given the need for businesses to adopt new technologies, including data science, AI/ML, AR/VR, and even blockchain, finding the expertise and having the budget to employ them is simply beyond the majority of companies. And yet, they need to compete with the “big boys” to keep their market shares. Outsourcing in emerging markets that have the expertise allows that competition.