Belarus Drives IT Services Value

Technology is inherently democratic in nature.  There are very few countries in which a person cannot take an interest in IT from a hobby all the way to a prosperous career.  However, the global technology services market has never been more competitive, and standing out in a crowded field is challenging at best.  This is where forward-looking stakeholders in Belarus are coming to the forefront, in the provision of various technology offerings that are definitively oriented to export markets across the globe.  The Belarusian economy is steadily being moved toward technology, and there is a quiet confidence among its players that it will be successful in this modernizing agenda.

What immediately strikes any business visitor coming to Belarus is that the country is truly connected.  It should be remembered that Minsk was designated as the USSR’s technology hub in the 1970s by the then-Soviet government, and this culture continues to permeate.  With an estimated 100,000 IT experts living in Belarus, there is a vibrancy in the country’s atmosphere. Conference rooms and cafes bristle with lively discussions that take on both tech and entrepreneurial flavors.  And, forward-looking leaders in this space have laid the groundwork for both ongoing development and profit.

Consider the recently completed Hi-Tech Park Belarus, a modern facility that acts as a strategic incubator for entrepreneurs across the IT value chain. Current tenants include application developers, hardware manufacturers, and prospective disruptors, many of the latter focusing on crypto-currencies, an area in which Belarus’ IT sector is targeting for future growth. Each takes advantage of recently-passed tax abatements designed to help boost Belarus’ IT space.  Housed on the outskirts of Minsk, such a development would easily fit into Silicon Valley or Austin’s technology hub. But despite being uniquely East European in its flavor, the aim of the majority of this initiative’s members is to firmly implant their products and services in western markets.  And, based on historic precedent, there is reason to believe that they will achieve this end.

The ongoing success of Belarus-based IBA Group is testament to the opportunity that technology players from this country can find overseas.  With a list of services ranging from transportation management solutions through to RPA for leading financial services providers in South Africa, this company (which incidentally recently celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary) has become an example of how IT services can be successfully exported from an emerging European location.  That IBA Group has recently opened a brand new campus in Minsk’s technology hub speaks to its success.

Read the full article at Ryan Strategic Advisory.