21 August 2018

Polish IT industry is one of the most important sectors of the national economy, with high fundamental principles and future growth prospects. Some aspects like state budget compensation, the specialist available or the rapid development of the market are influencing the industry. The country is also one of the winners when it comes to the global financial crisis, which helped it to offer products and services that have been short lately – economic stability. That is the main reason why companies started to be interested in the Polish market.

So why is worth investing in Polish IT sector? Below we will discuss some ideas and give evidence for them.

Development of the market

From this point of view, there are at least two reasons why Poland is worth investing. First, it is worth because of the rapid development of the market and the growth of domestic demand. Second, due to the presence of global IT companies as IBM, Microsoft, HP or Google, the significance of Poland confirms and now isn’t anymore just a place to sell product and services, it is also worth investing here.

According to the last infographic made by PMR, the estimations of the information technology sector, which includes hardware, software and IT services, are quite favorable: the value for the IT industry in 2015 amounted 32.6 billion PLN, and the prognosis for 2017 is 35.8 billion PLN. The majority of this sum comes from computer equipment selling. Also, the IT services (outsourcing for instance) and software distribution showed pronounced growth. For 2019 the growth expected in IT services share is 45%.

Also, if we take into account the Computerworld TOP 200 ranking, the capital for the biggest IT companies in Poland for 2016 was 63 billion PLN if cumulated. This significant growth is due to the businesses that deal with electronics, which also included subcontractors with operating centers in Poland.

The three components of the IT sector in Poland we mentioned before showed some exciting prospects in a Euromoney survey. According to the study, the IT services sector will grow by 8.2% per year between 2015 and 2019; the software sector is expected to increase to 7.2% per year, while the hardware industry is expected to grow less: 3.2% every year.

Human capital

The main reason why Poland becomes more and more valuable for IT industry centers is the availability of employees. While many countries struggle with the lack of labor, Poland has still available people, which most of the time provides services for foreign clients.

As we mentioned before, one of the strongest advantages of the Polish market is human capital. Even if the labor costs in Poland are between 20-50% lower than the ones in Western Europe, the factor that distinguishes those two regions is the high quality of services provided by Polish specialists. The talent and skills of young professionals are often proven by the results of international programming competition, such as Hello World Open, The International Olympiad in Informatics, Capture the flag, ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, and other competitions.

Also, the most dynamic sub-sector of IT industry of the Polish economy, outsourcing, covers a current number of employees around 45.000, but the predictions say that in two years the number will be almost doubled.

Compensations, demand, and modernity

Of course, this general growth that we are observing in Poland has been supported by some investment incentives available in some regions. Companies that implement new projects or expand their activity zone can benefit from various forms of regional aid. This financial support includes non-repayable funds from the state budget or EU funds. There are also some Special Economic Zones that have local tax exemptions for those who are investing there.

In the next years, Polish IT industry will be influenced by some factors such as public sector rate of spending, the small and medium companies, the modern technology and also the development of the IT services when it comes to outsourcing.

Those small and medium businesses will show a significant demand for software, hardware, and IT services, and that is due to the importance of having a competitive advantage on the market. Another interesting trend for the small enterprises is the demand for sophisticated solutions such as Enterprise Resource Planning.

Of course, we mention that the trends will also positively influence the IT market: the increase of participation in cloud computing of private and public sector as well, the usually growing of the internet users, the need of being always up-to-date with IT solutions and the requirement to decrease delays.

So, having all these pieces of evidence about the Poland stability when it comes to IT sector, you know where to invest and find partners for various services such as enterprise solutions, business intelligence or mobile development.

Published by: Joanna Matysiak

Photo source: www.unsplash.com

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