Outsourcing Guide Romania Sponsorship
13 December 202118 May 2014 | Insights
Studies about the outsourcing sector in Romania and its neighboring countries are scarce and sometimes unreliable, while the data they provide often comes in an unstructured format and has little value as a basis for decision making regarding outsourcing to Romania.
As little doubt existed this gap had to be filled, Fortech supported the German Outsourcing Association‘s initiative to publish Outsourcing Guide Romania, a material aimed at helping decision makers understand what to expect from Romanian IT&C business services providers.
The guide compiles information and statistics about the credentials and main players of the Romanian ITO and BPO industry, and the Romanian IT&C market as a whole. Original solutions proposed by Romanian industry experts are presented as case studies and project reports.
“Whenever our prospects or customers requested reliable statistics about the Romanian IT sector we had to invest considerable amounts of time in online research. These efforts often led to results below our expectations, making it clear that periodic studies should be conducted by resourceful people inside the Romanian outsourcing phenomenon, who can obtain the latest data from the Government and consultancy firms. An opportunity to make this happen came with the German Outsourcing Association’s initiative to publish Outsourcing Guide Romania, which we sponsored wholeheartedly. The outcome of their efforts fully met our expectations. We are proud to have contributed to this comprehensive and well-documented Outsourcing Guide, which can help us win new business.”
Calin Vaduva, CEO
The guide includes two comprehensive and very useful studies, one by ANIS, a Romanian association for companies in the IT&C sector, the other by the German Outsourcing Association. Together, the two materials make a compelling case for the Romanian IT outsourcing sector. Listed next are several of the factors that combine to make Romania an attractive outsourcing destination:
Statistics about the Romanian IT market show positive trends despite the prolonged economic crisis (e.g. sales and IT spending kept growing, labor costs continue to be competitive with respect to those in neighboring countries, largely due to the tax incentives offered by the Romanian government to IT specialists);
- Political and economic factors make Romania slightly more attractive to foreign customers than the other countries in South-Eastern Europe, Ukraine, and Russia;
- Romania’s labor force in 2011 (9 million) was the largest in South-Eastern Europe;
- Romanian IT specialists tend to show better linguistic abilities than their counterparts from most European countries;
- Large multinationals own about 50 offshore centers in Romania and new names are added to this list, attracted by our highly skilled specialists;
- The number of specialists working in outsourcing (local, offshore, and nearshore) more than trebled between 2007 and 2012, when it reached 50,000. This upward trend is expected to continue for many years to come;
- Around 4,000 specialists graduate each year with majors in computer programming;
- Staff turnover rates in local companies kept decreasing as a result of constantly improving salaries, work environments, and team cohesion, among other factors;
- Romania has affordable real estate costs and saw major infrastructure improvements lately;
- The main outsourcing centers in Romania (Bucharest, Cluj, Timisoara, Iasi) are very well connected by air with major European cities.
The professional skills and linguistic proficiency of Romania’s IT specialists and the country’s sizable labor force and student population have repeatedly topped the list of factors that make Romania appealing to foreign investors. All the statistics and facts provided by the authors indicate that Romania is well positioned against its direct competitors and the country’s future in IT outsourcing looks bright.
Under these circumstances, the 9th place awarded to Romania in the October 2012 Jones Lang LaSalle ranking of global outsourcing destinations came as no surprise. This ranking was based on the number of jobs created with direct foreign investment.
