Eastern Europe or more accurately Central Europe garnered media attention today in the form of a New York Times article:
The focus is on the Central European countries of the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, etc., with examples from Accenture and the accounting operations they run in Prague, Czech Republic. A key statement was made by Robert H. Brown, an outsourcing analyst at Gartner Dataquest, “Expects growth in Eastern Europe to outstrip the rest of the market in the next four years, expanding close to 30 percent by 2010, compared with 25 percent for the global market.” That growth is mainly based on increased business from Western European countries.
The countries further East, i.e. Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, were only touched on briefly; as well as Romania and Bulgaria, the newest members of the European Union having joined on the 1st of January this year. In Ukraine we have been experiencing increased inquiries and business from those customers who had previously been outsourcing in Czech Republic, Poland, the Baltic Countries, for some time now, since they joined the European Union in May of 2004. We can expect to see the same with companies working in Romania and Bulgaria, but perhaps at a slower pace.