Access To Skills And IT Expertise Driving European Outsourcing
Mark Hillary
I saw some research published on IT Pro Portal that compared the pros and cons of British companies outsourcing IT processes to India and Eastern Europe. As might be expected, the arguments are generally around the cost of doing business in each location and the available skills, but it was interesting to see some references to the AT Kearney 2016 Global Location Index.
This research focuses in detail on the best locations, focusing on cities and clusters of cities rather than just comparing one country with another. At a broad level the Eastern Europe destinations do extremely well when compared to all other locations globally. Five out of the top twenty best locations globally for IT services are located in Eastern Europe.
In my opinion this underlines an important point. Many journalists writing these comparison stories focus on cost, particularly when they explore the cost of doing business in Asia. However, as the AT Kearney research demonstrates there are many more reasons that these locations in Europe excel in IT services – to reduce everything to cost alone is far too simplistic.
At present I can’t see an update to the AT Kearney research for 2017, but I’m sure it’s coming soon. When I look at the data for 2016 though I can see three stories emerging:
1. Companies are using outsourcing as a strategic tool specifically to access skills, not to reduce costs.
2. Companies are using outsourcing and partnership with IT experts because they need to explore automation and industrial developments such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
3. Companies are finding that they need to offer cloud-based services that are charged as they are used and this requires extensive IT expertise to deliver successfully.
The India vs Europe comparisons don’t generally appreciate that the way business is delivered has changed dramatically in the past decade. Working with IT experts today is essential if companies are going to be able to deliver successful digital transformation programmes – skills and expertise are driving outsourcing programmes today.