Nowadays, the focus of outsourcing is shifting from offshore to nearshore locations, such as Eastern Europe, due to the proximity of time zones, cultural affinity, and strong technological expertise. Ukraine remains one of the top IT outsourcing destinations in this region offering a great price to quality ratio and a rapidly evolving IT and business infrastructure.
However, Asian countries, such as India, are actively flooding the market with new talents and competing with the US and European outsourcing leaders. That is why we’ve decided to compare Ukraine and India as some of the leading outsourcing destinations in their regions and define which country offers the best quality of services to meet your business needs.
IT Industry Development in Ukraine
IT industry in Ukraine grew by 15-20% in 2018, while the market reached $4.5B, and this pace is getting faster year by year. Over 192,000 Ukrainian IT specialists have developed strong expertise in different verticals ranging from fintech, healthcare to telecom, which helps the country maintain a competitive edge on the global IT market. More than 1,600 IT outsourcing companies are located in Ukraine providing a vast array of services related to technology development. According to 2019 Bloomberg Innovation Index, Ukraine is ranked 53rd for its adoption of innovations and came slightly ahead of India. Since 2014, the country moved up 25+ positions in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business and now holds the 71st place, while India is ranked 77th.
Ukraine is also continuing to gain prominence in terms of IT industry recognition with numerous global IT companies setting up their innovation centers here. For instance, more than 100 R&D centers of major international companies such as Microsoft, Samsung Electronics, Apple, Wargaming, Boeing, Skype, eBay, Siemens, IBM, etc. are located in Ukraine. Moreover, 15 Ukrainian IT companies, including N-iX, Eleks, Sigma Software, etc. have been featured in 2019 Global Outsourcing 100 list by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) as the best outsourcing providers. It comes as no surprise that the country was included in Gartner’s Top 30 offshoring and outsourcing destinations and recognized as number one in Europe in the sector of IT outsourcing.
IT Industry Development in India
According to The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), the IT sector in India employs more than 2.75M professionals with the inflow of over 230K employees during the last year. The Indian IT market generated revenues of $181B during 2018 compared to $146.5B in 2015, with a growth rate of nearly 10%. Such software development growth rate is attributed mostly to the country’s population size, which is around 1.36B, and a high youth rate with about half the population under 25.
Additionally, India has around 4,000+ startups and is ranked third in the world among startup communities in such areas as healthtech, analytics, IoT, and cybersecurity. However, the president of the software association Nasscom highlighted the need to update the skill base in India for digital and consulting domains.
Technical education in Ukraine and in India
Education in one of the key factors that determine the evolution and development of a particular region. The economic progress, as well as overall progress of any country, is directly linked to the quality of education that is being imparted with the values. Strong technical education can not only stimulate the appearance of new technological innovations but also foster digital transformation within the country.
For instance, Ukraine has a strong technical education system. More than 16,000 IT and additional 23,000 engineering students graduate every year with certificates in technical disciplines from over 400 educational institutions. The most popular of them are the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv, National Technical University of Ukraine “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”, Lviv Polytechnic National University, etc. Moreover, Ukrainian universities have launched a number of IT-related courses in IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, etc. to promote new technological trends across the country.
India has around 620 technical institutions including the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Indian Institute of Information, Technology, Design and Manufacturing (IIITDM). Additionally, such organizations as All India Council for Technical Education along with 10 statutory boards of studies are responsible for the development of technical education within the country.
Wrap-up
All in all, both Ukraine and India keep their positions as top IT outsourcing destinations in their regions. Ukraine offers expertise in the cutting-edge technologies, highly skilled IT professionals, a proximity to the European clients and a moderate time difference with the USA, which makes it an increasingly attractive destination for outsourcing. It has the biggest talent pool in Eastern Europe and increases its positions in global business venue rankings every year. So, depending on the aspects that are crucial for your business, you may decide which of these countries is better for you and choose your best IT outsourcing provider for effective cooperation.
