3rd-year student, sp. “Finance and Credit”, d/d, Scientific Advisor – Stupak M.H., Chernivtsi Trade and Economics Institute of KNTEU, Chernivtsi
THE DEVELOPMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY IN UKRAINE AND ITS ROLE IN THE GLOBAL MARKET
Over the past few years Ukraine’s information technology (IT) industry has become the world’s fifth largest and the fastest growing IT outsourcing services market. With more than 200 outsourcing companies, IT jobs have appeared to be more and more lucrative. Many potential IT companies have lined up to invest in Ukraine since the demand for software development is very high. The objective of this paper is to analyze the development of IT industry in Ukraine and to identify its role and perspectives in the global IT market. The history of Ukraine’s software development industry is deeply rooted. Officially, December 25, 1951 is considered as the beginning of the computer science era in Ukraine when the first computer was introduced in the entire Continental Europe. A rapid growth of IT industry was recorded in the middle of 1990s, when a large number of independent software development companies emerged. However, since 2000 Ukraine has already become a leading player in the software development space, and has been ranked at the top of IT outsourcing service providers in the global market. It is obvious that more and more companies come to Ukraine selecting it as a preferred destination for their R&D offices. Strong engineering education, popularity of engineering professions among the youth, and rich history of the software development industry make Ukraine one of the most attractive Europe destinations for the IT outsourcing and software development businesses [1]. The Ukrainian government actively supports industrial growth through tax exemptions, and provides public financing for development of IT and innovation parks. Governmental support promoted the further expansion of the software development and IT outsourcing service ecosystem in 2012–2013. During the last decade Ukraine has been the leading provider of software development and IT outsourcing services in the Central and Eastern European region. Ukraine is ranked first in the volume of IT outsourcing and software development services provided, in the number of IT specialists working in the industry, and in the number of IT graduates [2]. There is no doubt, that IT industry is developing at a rapid pace of 20% – 25% growth a year while new companies are opening their R&D offices in Ukraine. After the recent tax exemption legislation for software development companies has been accepted, such global vendors as Google, Microsoft and Samsung expressed interest in establishing R&D centres in Ukraine. IT industry actively penetrates into different regions. All leading companies are extending their office networks to the main regional centres: Chernigiv, Kirovograd, Ivano-Frankivsk, Sumy, Ternopil, Zhytomyr, Luhansk, Lutsk, Poltava, Khmelnitskiy, where there were no appreciable companies until recently. Ukraine still boasts the most impressive gap in Europe between GDP per capita in the country and GDP per capita in the software development industry. This could be an important economic incentive for specialists and businessmen to enter the profitable and well-paid market of software development and IT outsourcing services. To sum up, the development of IT industry is giving Ukraine a good growth rate. Many investors, sellers and buyers consider the Ukrainian market as a potential player in the global IT market. In other words, the IT market of Ukraine is becoming profitable for the investors all over the world. Selected bibliography: 1. http://intersog.com/blog/ukrainian-it-market-2013/ 2. http://outsourcing-ukraine.org/2011/11/29/global-recognition-ukraine/
