To outsource to Ukraine or not to outsource to Ukraine? A ‘simple’ Shakespearean question that is hardly ever answered without a thorough research into IT outsourcing or benefits of outsourcing in advance.

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There is 100% chance you are now well-versed in this area and are already looking for the best destination for your business process outsourcing.

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Market offering of business process outsourcing destinations is already quite substantial. Although Asia has been an undisputed leader occupying high-rank position on global outsourcing market for quite some time already, lately, though competitors from Eastern Europe, in particular from Ukraine, have started following hot on its heels. The question arises: what makes leading companies (Smartling, SHAPE, Jelastic, Currency Cloud, Elementrum SCM, Viewdle, DisclosureNet, CloudMade, AdsWizz) turn their eyes westward to Ukraine.

Here is what:

Competent and skillful specialists with university degrees

Ukraine holds distinction of being home to over 800 institutions of higher education and a vast pool of competent and educated human resources. Since education is considered to be major human value for this nation, an impressive amount of workers from Western and Central Ukraine have obtained two degrees, some even from the world’s finest universities. In 2012 Ukraine ranked higher than any other Eastern European country in the Nation Higher Education Systems rating developed by Universitas 21. It left behind Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia, Russia and Slovakia.

The region is turning into a real tech hub

103 institutions of higher education in Ukraine develop IT skills, an estimated 16,000 IT specialists graduate annually in Ukraine, 16 out of the 24 finalists of Google’s annual Code Jam programming competition were from Central and Eastern Europe. All these facts stand to reason why Ukraine is gradually turning into a real tech hub, programmers from Ukraine are gaining worldwide acclaim and it outsourcing is reaching winning positions.

Tough competition

Tough competition on job market that is particularly intense among Ukrainian programmers is a kind of a knock-off effect of a well-developed educational system. And this spurs high quality work and speed of delivery

Outsourcing to Ukraine is cost-effective and low-priced

You might say that since software developers or virtual assistants from Ukraine are low-cost, they feel no incentive to build robust systems with good architecture or complete task efficiently. That is not the case if you account for money value of different countries. Outsourcing to Ukraine is not cheap it is cost-effective. What sounds cheap for you may be quite decent for your service providers.

Outsourcing to Ukraine is quite smooth

Western mentality and fluent command of English (one of main subjects in all secondary schools and higher education establishments) rule out the possibility of communication failure or cultural dissonance. Communication problems and cultural differences are real setbacks especially when it comes to giving instructions to people who have different grasp of language or culture. Virtual assistants from Europe, in particular virtual assistants from Ukraine aren’t prone to fall victim to this trap due to cultural similarities with their offshore customers.

Among red flags that make the scales tip are social unrest, unstable government, sluggish economy. One might think they interfere with global outsourcing trends. Well, hardly. There is no such thing as high staff turnover common for it specialists and virtual assistants from Philippines or India who shuttle from one employer to another in search of “greener pastures”. Recent turmoil has made Ukrainians even more persistent, goal-oriented, they tend to value opportunities life presents. This is a lesson once learned adds high value to a person as a professional, irrespective whether this is a developer or virtual assistant. That matters most of all, don’t you think? In the end, this is what we expect while outsourcing task: professional approach and immediate assistance.