Why Belarus Stands Out Among Other IT Outsource Destinations
And How It Affects U.S. Tech Shortage
Key facts about Belarus as one of the most attractive locations for IT outsource
1) Location: Belarus is situated in the center of Eastern Europe, 2–3-hour-flight away from European capitals and connection hubs.
2) Time-zone: The country resides in UTC/GMT+3, so working hours overlap with European and U.S. time.
3) Population and Language: Among more than 9.5 mln of Belarusians many are fluent English speakers due to high:
- human development index (#50 with 15.7 expected years of schooling according to UN Human Development Report),
- education and global technology index (#53 and #43 respectively according to UN UDR),
- talent index (ranked 8# by Martin Prosperity Institute),
- global creativity index (ranked #37 with Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland lagging behind).
4) Visa: As of 2017, Belarus is open for no-visa entry and up to 5-day stay for the citizens of around 80 countries (including 39 European countries and U.S.)
Will you be in SF on Wednesday, March 8, 2017? Join out Meetup on How to Do IT Outsourcing Right. We’ll study real U.S.-Belarus cases from real people who know how to turn Outsourcing into Smartsourcing.
What makes favorable IT environment in Belarus: TALENTS, EXPERIENCE, PARTNERS
1) IT Maturity: Belarus has more than 50 years of technology development experience, with 20+ years as an active outsource destination. Belarus stands 4th among leading outsourcing destinations of CEE.
2) IT Professionals: More than 40,000 people are involved in IT sector, and every year Belarusian universities provide additional 4,000 young specialists. Around 90% of developers in Belarus have at least one university degree.
3) IT Outstanding Talents: Belarusian developers compete and regularly win in international dev championships, such as Google Code Jam, Facebook Hacker Cup, Google Hash Code World Robotic Olympiad.
4) IT Partners: Belarus hosts 123.5-acre Hi-Tech park that has brought $703,5 mln in 2015 only. According to CIOReview, 7 Belarusian companies got to the top of Most Promising IT companies, with Ciklum, EPAM, IBA Group, Intetics, Itransition and Bell Integrator in the top 100 of international outsourcing companies in 2016 by IAOP yearly rating.
5) IT Quality and Cost Ratio: Outsource from Belarus is highly valued due to 30–60% average saving in development costs and solidly outstanding level of quality. Average cost of one dev hour is $25, compared to almost $26 in Russia and $27 in Estonia.
IT Brands Made in Belarus: Epam, Wargaming, Viber, Maps.Me, Juno, MSQRD, etc.
Meanwhile, U.S. continues to experience tech shortage and refers to CEE for outsource more often.
Key stats on U.S. needs in outsourcing from CEE: what to expect in the nearest decade
According to Megan Smith, the chief technology officer of the United States and former Google executive: “There’s going to be 1.4 million tech and I.T. jobs coming within the next decade [in the U.S.] and only 400,000 trained people to fill them.
- Current Volume: U.S. is undoubtedly the leader among other countries that rely on CEE taking up 44% of all the outsourcing in this region.
- Tech Relocation: According to various surveys, some of the biggest U.S. companies experience the lack of engineering talent. Thus, Google, Amazon, and Facebook, for example, have already moved their A.I. research centers to Europe.
- Talent Engagement: Major U.S. IT companies (IBM, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple) trying to fill the gap of tech talent applied for H-B1 visas to engage foreign labour into the country. However, out of 236,000 of all applications only 85,000 were approved due to lottery-like selection approach (as of 2015).
- U.S. Outsource to Belarus: Google, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, Accenture, Facebook, SAP, Ebay, Expedia, Fujitsu Technology Solutions, HP, Oracle. Teradata, to name a few.
We will explain how to outsource to Belarus and get the best of it. So if you are in SF next month, join our Meetup on How to Do IT Outsourcing Right (on Wednesday, March 8, 2017).
