Software outsourcing destinations: Ukraine vs India

Software outsourcing has been remaining an international trend for a while and according to the forecasts will proceed to expand for the years to come. Statista estimates the current global market size of outsourced services at $92.5bn and predicts to beat its record in 2020, spending $1.1 trillion worldwide on IT services. That’s the reason why new big players annually enter the outsourcing arena, competing to become the most wanted IT outsourcing destination.

For a long time, Eastern Europe has been holding a leader position on the market not only for the Western part but also for the USA and Canada, offering professional and experienced developers with a good English level. Though, recent years Asian and Middle East developers are hitting the market offering tempting prices for their services.

In today’s article, we will discuss strong and weak points of two big players of the aforementioned regions: Ukraine vs India, let’s go!

Brief overview

Ukraine has already strengthened its position in the list of Eastern Europe IT outsourcing providers, demonstrating a steady growth of software engineering with 11-26% annually. More than 1,600 IT companies currently operating in Ukraine provide expertise in various services, giving the country 11th position on the HackerRank list in terms of programming quality, while India is ranked 31st.

Despite this, India takes a lion’s share in the global IT market, having a longtime experience in delivering outsourcing services. More than 2,75 million developers work in India while in Ukraine the talent pool is much smaller — 192,000. The attractiveness of this destination is mostly explained by a large and inexpensive pool of developers.

Geographic position/English level

If you have ever considered collaboration with an outsourcing vendor, you must understand the importance location plays. Constant communication with an outsourced team is inevitable if you want to stay aware of the development process and be confident that the result will meet your expectations. The time difference with Ukraine is more than convenient — 1 hour with Europe, and around 7 hours with the USA. Whereas, approximately 5 hours between India and Europe and 10 hours with the USA.

Being a democratic country with an active vector of European integration, Ukraine has made the English language compulsory in most of the schools and universities. Furthermore, almost every IT company offers free English courses for their employees, as a result — 80% of Ukrainian developers speak English, with 47% of them having an upper-intermediate level. English is also widely spoken in India, but not written. Therefore, you might encounter difficulties and misunderstandings reading a report from your vendor. Take also into account pronunciation, intonation and tone differences that vary a lot from Western.

Education level

The quality of services the country offers is strongly predetermined by the level of education of its citizens. According to 2015 statistics, the Ukrainians literacy rate is 99,8% with 70% having a secondary or higher education. 661 higher education institutions are currently educating 1,6 million students, investing in engineering faculties and STEM programs.

On the contrary, India has 620 exclusively technical institutions, which makes technical education the most desirable and developed one. Though, the level of education still remains not high, with 25% of Indians being illiterate.

IT company statistics

IT product and outsourcing companies, captive centers of global business form an overall number of 1,600 software development service companies currently operating in Ukraine, winning global industry awards such as GSA UK Awards, IT Europa Awards, Global Outsourcing 100, etc. Over 100 representatives of the Fortune 500 list of the most influential companies are customers of Ukrainian outsource companies (Volvo, Audi, Siemens, Lebara, Grammarly, etc).

In India, the IT industry is a key part of the economy that generated around $180 billion in 2019. The country takes third place in the world as to the number of startups. The National Association of Software and Service Companies reported that almost half of Fortune 500 companies outsource in India.

Data safety and insurance

According to HackerRank, Ukraine takes one of the top places in terms of security policies and technical safeguards. Data and intellectual property protection, conformity with the GDPR norms have become the main principle in delivering services of the Ukrainian software companies. While, India still faces a lot of security challenges, being a vulnerable country in terms of cyber-attacks and a lack of national-level architecture for cybersecurity.

Quality to price correspondence

One of the main reasons why businesses outsource development to India is low rates. The price of hiring Ukrainian developers will exceed the price offered by Indian but is definitely worth it in the matters of code quality and the factors mentioned above. However, the rates on software outsourcing in Ukraine are lower than Western European rates, which makes Ukraine a lucrative option for those who don’t want to outsource to India.

What is the right choice?

Ultimately, both India and Ukraine are popular outsourcing destinations and are recognized as top IT vendors. Ukrainian IT companies offer high-quality services, ensure data safety, and invest in the education of developers. Location is the first choice, but it is not crucial. As you proceed, you’ll have to choose the company based on their portfolio and client reviews. If your choice is India, make sure you entrust your project to a reliable company, because you get what you pay for. Remember, a good developer is worth their weight in gold and inVerita is happy to be your Ukrainian vendor if you opt for our country.