The coronavirus pandemic of the last several months has made outsourcing services even more popular. Poland is on top positions both in Europe and worldwide in terms of attractiveness of service locations. No wonder that many companies choose Poland when outsourcing to Europe.
Why is outsourcing to Poland so popular?
Why do many companies from outside the border decide to outsource to Poland? It is influenced by many factors, including the attractiveness of the location of services. Nowadays, an extremely popular trend in business is nearshoring, i.e. looking for subcontractors outside the country (in a fairly close region). Poland has long been among the most popular destinations for IT outsourcing.
For what other reasons is Poland a good destination for IT services outsourcing? This is mainly influenced by the following factors:
- not too exorbitant operating costs,
- well-developed infrastructure in the IT sector, highly valued in comparison with many other European countries,
- high indicator of social development (taking into account the resultant of national income, level of education and life expectancy),
- low prices of services (lower ones can be found only in Asia),
- low operational risk,
- location near Western Europe (easy communication thanks to the convergence of time zones),
- very good command of English (which is one of the most popular international communication languages).
Why does Europe have an advantage in outsourcing to Asian countries?
For several years, Central and Eastern Europe has been in the lead in terms of IT services (ahead of North America and Western Europe). It is the region which is the main provider of engineering and R&D services. In Poland, apart from IT, accounting and financial services dominate in outsourcing services.
Many people may wonder where the significant advantage of Central and Eastern Europe in terms of outsourcing comes from in relation to Asian countries, which are associated primarily with moderate prices. As it turns out, however, costs are of secondary importance when it comes to outsourcing, and access to specialists with the right knowledge and skills is much more important.
Foreign investors more and more often decide to outsource difficult and specialized services that require appropriate knowledge, experience and considerable skills. Therefore it is extremely important for them to invest in human capital, which will translate at a later stage into the possibility of offering high quality services to their clients.
The European outsourcing market is appreciated worldwide to such an extent that even investors from China or India, which in many respects should be closer to the Asian rather than the European outsourcing market, decide to take advantage of its opportunities. Not so long ago, entrepreneurs from China moved almost 25% of their centers outside the country, and 9% of them went to Central and Eastern Europe. In the case of India as much as 18% of the centers moved out of the country went to Europe.
Outsourcing services in Poland – what can be improved to make it even better?
In many aspects Poland is a very good place to transfer outsourcing services. However, our country cannot be a leader in IT services for some reasons. This is mainly due to problems related to the availability of specialists. Although there are many employees on the market with experience and proper education to work in IT, many of them already have their regular jobs and thus cannot fully deal with expanding outsourcing services.
Although Poland is among the top countries rated highest for the quality of IT services, it is a little short of the top spots, and the forecasts of specialists for the coming years do not assume that something in this regard will change.
