Why they chose Ukraine for IT outsourcing? Customer References

With Ukraine collecting awards at international outsourcing arena much attention has been thrown on the country these weeks. Last month Ukraine has won the nomination “Outsourcing Destination of The Year” in the frames of European Outsourcing Excellence Awards proving its ambitions to challenge world’s leading destinations to become a destination of choice for complex R&D and software development work. Ukraine is renowned for its exceptional talent pool, advanced engineering capabilities and can-do mentality which already made it as best location choice for some of the world leading firms. Below we collected opinions of companies that selected Ukraine for their ITO:

Berlingske Media, Denmark

Berlingske, the oldest Danish media house with a 262-years history, moved a substantial part of its software development to Kiev, Ukraine, in 2010. Jesper Bagger, Project Director at Berlingske Media, shares background of his decision to outsource to Ukraine. So, why did Berligske actually choose Ukraine and not India or Latin America for its external development? Jesper says there were several decisive factors. One of them was that when you choose to establish and manage an outsourced team, you should be ready to move quickly to the location. Flights from Copenhagen to Kiev are much shorter and cheaper than to the offshore locations. Another reason was that the company wanted to keep its outsourced operations close to Denmark. And overall, the mentality of the Ukrainians, especially those residing in Kiev, is almost the same as in Denmark.

Chartsnow, UK

Christophe Lemoine, chief technology officer at UK-based mobile application company Chartsnow, outsourced its development work to the Ukraine several years ago, and agrees that a collaborative approach is the only way to succeed. Lemoine spends around 70% of his time in the country overseeing project work. “Originally I was completely against the idea of going out of Switzerland [where I was based at the time], as I’d heard so many stories about projects going wrong. But as the company was starting up, nearshoring provided the best value for money with our limited resources.” Lemoine says he decided against developing in Asia because he wanted people who shared a similar culture and were based nearby. Instead he opted for the Ukraine. “Including transport costs, we spend nearly half of what we would back home for these services,” he said. “Originally I was completely against the idea of going out of Switzerland [where I was based at the time], as I’d heard so many stories about projects going wrong. But as the company was starting up, nearshoring provided the best value for money with our limited resources.” Lemoine says he decided against developing in Asia because he wanted people who shared a similar culture and were based nearby. Instead he opted for the Ukraine. “Including transport costs, we spend nearly half of what we would back home for these services,” he said.

Barclays Capital, UK

“Ukraine was chosen because of the exceptional local technical talent and strong analytical skills available. This investment in Kyiv allows Barclays Capital to further diversify its workforce locations and the firm will grow globally by 800 IT professionals in 2010 with continued growth anticipated over the coming years”, – Sarah Grave, Head of IT EMEA, Prague and Kyiv at Barclays Capital.

Coca-Cola 

“Ukraine’s well-educated, highly-skilled workforce and low labour costs provide an ideal environment for businesses to prosper”.  Silviu Popovici, General Manager of Coca-Cola