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Poland

Basic information

Capital: Warsaw
Population: 38.5 mio
Large cities: Krakow, Gdansk
Currency: Złoty
Language: Polish
Government: Parliamentarian Republic
Time zone: UTC+1
GDP: $312 bn.
Dialling code: +48
Internet TLD: .pl

Overview Poland

Since 1990, the Polish economy underwent an impressive development. The economic structure as it is today reflects Poland’s progress and is approaching the economic structure of the ‘old’ 15 EU member states. More than 56 % of the gross added value are now being generated in the service sector, only 22 % are being generated in the industry sector; almost 6 % are generated in the building sector, and 4 % in the agricultural sector. The private sector accounts for more than 60% of the added value, employing almost 70 % of the workforce.
In recent years, however, both the computer industry (hard- and software) and the service sector grew.

Due to the labour costs which are still comparatively low, and because of a well-trained workforce, Poland is an attractive location for investments. These factors are complemented by a market of more than 38 mio. consumers and the favourable geographic location in Central-Eastern Europe.

 

Overview IT provider market

The IT sourcing market in Poland mainly consists of medium-sized IT companies which often function as service providers who, in other business divisions, develop their own products for the Polish resp. the international market. The degree of organization of the Polish companies is, contrary to the strong initiatives in China, Russia or India, not very marked, so that there are no significant lobby groups conducting marketing for sourcing in Poland. The Polish state does not grant special support to companies in the country.

The special advantages of the Polish providers lie in the fact that their performance and productivity in development are comparable to that of German companies, however, these services are still being offered at a lower price (production and transaction costs). Due to geographical proximity, the implementation of a project in Poland is therefore easily comparable to a project between Hamburg and Munich.

However, the continuing trend that young and qualified staff migrate to countries such as Ireland, England or Western Europe can be regarded as a risk for the Polish IT sector.
This creates bottlenecks, which lead on the one hand to a further adjustment of the daily rates to a Western European level and on the other hand to sub-contracts being awarded to companies in the Ukraine or Belarus. 

SWOT analysis

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