Business from Western countries has already understood the advantages of business process outsourcing. This especially relates to IT outsourcing, as such strategy helps to cut costs without losing in quality and efficiency. The only problem in business process outsourcing is to find a reliable and trustworthy partner. This is caused both by growing supply on the market — there are tens of thousands of IT outsourcing companies everywhere in the world — and by overall market globalization, which deletes borders in all processes of business cooperation.
One of the favorite IT outsourcing destinations all over the world is Eastern Europe. First of all, there are plenty of skillful and experienced professionals there with proven cases. Secondly, it creates less cultural and communication difficulties for customers from the West. Finally, Eastern European IT market focused on IT outsourcing long ago, which means it constantly develops in this direction. Many IT companies in Romania, Poland, Ukraine and other countries from the East of Europe offer all the range of IT outsourcing services and your only goal is to select the one you prefer the most. But how? That’s what we are going to discuss today.
IT market in Romania: Stats and insights
The first question you have probably featured in your mind while reading this is “Why Romania?”. Well, there are some exact reasons for featuring Romania as one of the most interesting countries for looking for an IT outsourcing partner. First of all, Romania is a very fast developing country — since the fall of the communist regime in 1989, the mostly agricultural country with a weak economy has made significant improvements on the path to industrialization and overall reconstruction of its economy. For example, since 1989 the GDP of Romania has grown by 9 times, and GDP per capita has grown by more than 10 times which alone proves that the country is economically succeeding, which is not a usual case for Eastern Europe — especially on such a scale.
When it comes to the IT market, digits don’t disappoint, either. Even in 2011 Romanian was marked as world’s 25th most desirable IT outsourcing destination by A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index, which is a fantastic result for a country that severely suffered from global crisis in 2008-2009. And what about the more recent insights? Well, Romania is the first country in Europe and sixth in the world by the correlation of certified IT specialists to overall population, surpassing even the US and Russian Federation. All these factors combined prove that Romania is a worthy destination if you want to find a reliable partner for your business to outsource certain IT processes or even the entire projects.
IT companies on Romanian market: How to choose the right vendor
Even though Romania has proven its reputation as one of Eastern Europe’s IT locomotives that drive the entire industry forward, not all Romanian IT companies are the same. Thus, if you want your project to be done all according to the technical specifications, and, most importantly, your inner expectations, you have to know some tips on how to choose trustworthy IT outsourcing partners.
1. Listen to them
Sometimes it is wiser to let your potential partner speak more in order to find out whether this is a match or not. Mention whether your partners ask questions about technical specification, internal processes, your expectations, time frames and other important aspects of the project. If they don’t, it’s a good indication that they are not engaged enough — and it is a good question if their engagement will enhance as the project will start going.
2. Ask former customers
Sometimes it is a good idea to come to partners or even competitors you are in contact with to ask whether they have experience of working on a particular market — or even with a particular company. If there is no option to get such direct insights, try to look for reviews on the Internet or just ask the vendor about cases. Remember, even good-looking cases should be researched — it is not that difficult to make them shine on the paper, hiding some real nuances.
3. Ask about SLA
SLA (Service Level Agreement) is a good tool for any IT outsourcing company. This is a bilateral agreement between you as a customer and outsourcer where you describe the exact requirements to the quality of the services provided — no matter if it is software development, project management or outstaffing. If your potential partner is going to sing this agreement without showing any doubts or making strange moves, it is a good sign that this is a trustworthy partner.
Conclusion
As you can see, Romania is more than a worthy destination when it comes to IT outsourcing. Nevertheless, any such major project has its pitfalls. First of all, you have to make sure that the company you are going to partner with is reliable, experienced, and capable of running your processes effectively and providing you with the outcomes you expect. Secondly, you have to formalize this partnership to guarantee your interests from any potential risks. Finally, you have to make sure that this will be a two-sided profitable partnership, not a situation where the profit will be made only for the outsourcer, but not for your business.
To ease your search, we can recommend you a reliable vendor which operates in Romania for years and employs local specialists with proven expertise, which can be seen by cases they have successfully finished. This company is called N-iX, and it hardly needs advertisement — you can easily check it out on your own and make sure it’s what you have been looking for.