Poland or Belarus: Which Country to Choose for Software Development?

Eastern Europe is one of the most stable and mature software outsourcing regions that offers top-notch software development talents and favorable conditions for doing business. The two Eastern European countries that can boast of their highly skilled software development specialists with years of hands-on working experience in the international software development market are Poland and Belarus.

Both Poland and Belarus provide reliable, high-quality IT services and many world-known IT companies have launched their branch offices and R&D centers there, entrusting their software development projects to Polish and Belarusian developers. In this article, we’ll have a closer look at the reasons why many businesses prefer outsourcing their application development and why they choose Poland and Belarus for that.

Why Outsource Software Development?

Many companies find IT outsourcing a viable option for building their digital solutions. Here are the key reasons why businesses prefer hiring outsourcing software development teams.

Cost optimization

Custom software development is a rather expensive activity. It requires a whole software development team with a diverse set of skills, expertise, and technologies. To cut down on their development costs many businesses outsource app development. This way, they avoid many expenses related to in-house team maintenance, including recruiting, training, benefits payment, and others.

Moreover, for the US and EU companies, it’s much cheaper to hire software development teams from the regions with lower rates, e.g. Poland and Belarus.

Speeding up software development

A well-selected team of IT experts can significantly accelerate the software development process. Customer companies don’t need to spend time on finding the necessary IT specialists as well as establishing and maintaining software development processes in the team. Instead, they receive a well-equipped team prepared to start with the development project at any time.

Top-notch IT skills

For IT outsourcing vendors to keep the competitive edge on the market and provide high-quality services, they need to constantly train their specialists and ensure that their work is aligned with international software development standards. For this, IT outsourcing vendors obtain various certificates recognized worldwide and apply their standards to all the structural divisions and employees in their companies.

Access to an extensive talent pool

The IT industry is experiencing a huge shortage of IT skills worldwide. Therefore, those companies who are urgently in need of software development specialists prefer to turn to outsourcing instead of putting their projects on a halt and spending time searching for the necessary employees.

Outsourcing IT vendors can quickly select and provide the best specialists with the right skills for in-house team augmentation or form full-cycle software development teams for instant project launch.

The Software Development Industry Comparison

Both Poland and Belarus have stably growing IT outsourcing markets. The two countries have established a reputation as reliable IT outsourcing destinations with extensive pools of highly-skilled software development specialists. Let’s have a closer look at the two countries.

Belarus

Belarusian IT sector is strictly divided into two categories: outsourcing companies which make 60.5% and product companies with 39.5%. The outsourcing vendors mostly operate on the international market, having clients from all over the world with 44% of them from the US and Canada, 49.1% are from Europe, and 4.1% are from Russian and other CIS countries. In 2019 the IT sector accounted for 6.2% of Belarusian’s GDP and by 2025 its share is projected to increase to 7.5%. Many Belarusian IT companies are residents of Belarusian Hi-Tech Park (HTP) launched in 2005. Most IT companies are concentrated in the capital of Belarus, Minsk. Currently, there are 1054 IT companies and 121 R&D foreign corporate centers that reside in HTP with over 71,000 development experts. The resident companies have considerable tax benefits which incentivize the business development in related to IT areas. These taxes include VAT, corporate profit tax, customs duty, and office duty. The taxes simplify the provision of Belarusian outsourcing services to other countries.

In spite of the Covid-19 pandemics which hit the entire world, the Belarusian IT industry is continuing to develop, overcoming the obstacles. For example, Belarus has improved its positions in the Global Innovation Index 2021 by WIPO, moving up 2 positions from 62nd place. This has become possible due to improvement in the Knowledge and technology outputs, moving from the 46th to 37th position, Creative outputs, moving from 97th to 93rd position, ICT services exports, moving from 15th to 11th position, and ICT access, moving from 19th to 16th position. Also, the report also highlights that Belarus remains one of the world leaders in application creation.

Belarusian outsourcing companies provide IT services to world-known corporations, including HTC, World Bank, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Toyota, Google, Samsung, and others.

Meanwhile, many SME businesses around the globe find outsourcing development to Belarus an affordable option.

Poland

The IT/ICT industry in Poland represents about 8% of Polish GDP with over 430,000 people employed in the industry, making it the largest and the fastest-growing (by 6% annually) IT talent pool in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region. Unlike in Belarus, the major Polish IT hubs are scattered around Poland, including Tri-city, Poznan, Wroclaw, Lodz, Warsaw, Katowice, and Krakow cities.

The Polish ICT specialization is diverse and includes:

As in Belarus, most of the Polish IT companies work for the international IT market. The most popular IT outsourcing areas in Poland are application development, IT support, and game development services. In 2016 the Polish IT outsourcing market reached $2,000 mln and is projected to reach $2,311 mln by 2021. The majority of the outsourcing services are exported to the US. According to the KPMG report on American investments in Poland, “every dollar invested in Poland by American companies creates 50% more value than other foreign investments.”

Many renowned companies start their ITO, SSC/BPO, and R&D centers in Poland, they include Luxoft, Tieto, BLStream. Sii, and C&F, Microsoft, Unilever, Samsung, Intel, Google, and others. According to the Business Services Sector in Poland report by ABSL, there were 1,400 foreign and Polish BPO, SSC/GBS, IT, and R&D service centers in 2019 which employed 307,000 IT workers in total.

Due to the rapid development of the Polish IT industry and massive investments, Poland is highly ranked among digital innovation leaders. It takes the 40th place in the Global Innovation Index 2021 by WIPO and the 14th position in Tholons Global Innovation Index 2021. The high position of Poland in global digital innovation rankings means that its IT market possesses highly skilled software development experts who provide decent software development services.

Software Development Technologies

Both Belarus and Poland offer a wide variety of outsourced software development services. Apart from standard desktop, web, and mobile development, Belarusian and Polish software developers work with emerging technologies, including IoT, Blockchain, AI, BigData, and others. They widely implement these technologies for building software for various industries. According to Sourceseek Global Software Marketplace Insights: Eastern Europe report, the most popular industry specializations in Eastern Europe are:

In Belarus, the most popular industry specializations are FinTech and Banking, Healthcare, Education, Travel and Tourism, while in Poland they are Security, Automotive, Energy, Education, and FinTech.

Given this, the most widespread technologies among Eastern European developers are JavaScript and LAMP stack. Meanwhile, the popularity of using JavaScript for back-end development is rising and currently is implemented by nearly 8% of software developers.

When comparing Belarus and Poland, the most popular programming languages among Polish software developers are Java, JavaScript, Python, while in Belarus they are Java, C++, and Python.

• Java is a multi-purpose programming language that allows developing mobile apps, FinTech solutions, Banking apps, server-side development, e-Commerce, healthcare, insurance, education, and others.
• C++ works great for building apps for Android, iOS, Linux, and Mac operating systems.
• Python is used in many startups and is preferred for its simplicity and robustness.
• JavaScript is mostly utilized for building front-end layers in web applications.

Summary

Many businesses turn  to outsourcing their software development projects to cut down on the development costs while not compromising on the product quality. Though, to gain the most from an outsourcing software company, they need to thoroughly investigate the market and choose the right software development partner.

Eastern Europe is one of the most preferred outsourcing destinations by many businesses. It offers top-notch IT talents who implement the latest technologies in their solutions and work with clients from all over the world. The two Eastern European countries with stably developing IT industries are Poland and Belarus. Before outsourcing development to Poland or Belarus, businesses have to consider the advantages provided by each country.

While Poland has a broader IT talent pool, Belarus can offer its clients outstanding expertise in some specific areas, such as FinTech, gaming, cryptocurrencies and mobile application development.

SCAND, an outsourcing software development company, has 2 development offices located in Poland and Belarus. This allows the company to incorporate the best software development practices of the two major CEE IT hubs. Gain maximum software development benefits with SCAND and feel free to contact us.