It may not have the same fame as other countries just yet, but Belarus has become one of the leading IT countries in Eastern Europe over the last five years. Back in 2005, the Belarus High Tech Park was created. This offered great opportunities for IT companies, both old and new. This lead to the IT industry’s strong growth. 2015 marked a significant year with the exports of IT services reaching nearly $1 billion. In the same year, 10 IT companies from Belarus were listed in the world’s Top 500 IT companies.
Here are a few more facts about Belarus andit’s IT growth:
The Republic of Belarus ranked 37th in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2019 research. There are 54 universities in Belarus. Each year, 16,000 students graduate in the field of IT.
Where to Look in Belarus
Of the 4,450 IT businesses, most are located in Minsk (3,360). The others are rather equally spread over Brest, Vitebsk, Gomel, Grodno, and Mogilev. Half of the companies that are based in Belarus are local. 40% are from North America and Europe, and the remaining 10% are mostly from Asia.
You will find that most are medium-sized IT companies. Around 41% will employ between 50 and 200 staff and 39% will hire 10 to 50 staff. Companies that are dominating the market at the moment are startups with less than 5 years of experience (44%), however, there is also a solid number of companies with between 6 and 10 years of experience (39%). This suggests that there is a nice balance between experience and fresh startups.
High Tech Park
Belarus has great support from the government in IT backed projects, significantly the High Tech Park. The High Tech (HTP) is a virtual park that concentrates n IT and related industries. You can see companies working in nanotechnologies, cloud technologies, data processing centers, and everything in between. There are 152 companies and about 25,000 employees. Major companies such as Peugeot, World Bank, London Stock Exchange, and Coca-Cola are all customers and products developed at HTP are being solid to customers from more than 60 countries globally.
Software Development in Belarus
In terms of programming languages, Belarusian developers are skilled in Java, .Net, PHP, C#, C++, Python, and Ruby on Rails.
Developers are skilled in a wide range of IT products. The gaming and entertainment sector has done considerably well with mobile apps such as Viber, SENSE, and Weather Live. World of Tanks, an online game was also a Belarusian product. Major International IT companies are choosing Belarus to establish their IT development centers. You will now find big names like InterActiveCorp, IHS, and Playtech, to name a few. Over recent years, the banking and finance sector has also become an incredibly competitive trend in Belarus.
IT Outsourcing in Belarus
IT outsourcing began as just simple outsourcing but has now developed into full software development life cycles. You can outsource your software project and Belarusian developers will take care of everything from the design to the implementation. You will find solutions for IT, energy, oil and gas, banking, and finance, gaming and e-commerce and much more.
There are 5 principle outsourcing models; B2BOutsourcing, Software Development, Mixed, Business Process Outsourcing, ITconsulting.
- B2B Outsourcing Model- over 90% of companies handle IT outsourcing;
- Software Development- 58% can provide their own developed software;
- Mixed model- approximately 60% will offer outsourcing services as well as develop their own software;
- IT Consulting- just over 30% offer IT consulting services, IT audits, and system analysis;
- Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)- Under 10% of companies carry out routine business tasks such as statistics, forms, etc.
In Conclusion
Belarus has demonstrated its ability to grow and develop at great speed and consistency. The IT industry has got from strength to strength and things are set to stay the same. The country has an amazing talent pool of well-educated and motivated developers. It is well situated with just short flights to other major European cities and to North America, and you can also enjoy being able to work within similar time zones.