The Polish software outsourcing industry is calling. So we listened and asked, what does this mean for us and our clients? We had to take a trip to understand this region deeper, perform first-hand research, and understand how we can leverage this globally relevant tech region for our teams and clients. The Kool-Aid never tasted so good.
We have a global edge – and working with global teams expands our offering, enhances our robustness as a business and expands our recruitment reach!
Rewind to May 2023, we were feeling a certain itch that comes with not having seen your team in a while – the sense of needing to connect with the people you are close with gripped us all.
The Beam team, and PYGIO team, namely: Tim, Adam, Nic and Dimitri quickly got to work arranging flights, accommodation, venues, developer strategy sessions and of course – the best spots to eat!
Warsaw – the land of e-scooters and global firms
Insight:
International firms like IBM, Intel, Lear Corporation, Raytheon Technologies, Tenneco, and Whirlpool all have a presence in Warsaw and Poland – US companies employ something like 300k Polish people and own about $5.4Bn worth of assets in Poland.
Story:
Fast forward to late August, our team slowly started shipping into Poland for our Dev Summit 2023. We started off in Warsaw, seeing the city was a treat – and it is here we started meeting some of the team. Valeriia and Svitlana – behind every solid development team is a world-class delivery team!
What we worked on:
We spent time working through our projects and enhanced our delivery processes – so we will be delivering projects faster – at higher quality and bang-on target (yep… we mean on a budget too)!
Of course, when all the work was over, Valeriia and Svitlana insisted we visit one of their favourite restaurants in the heart of Warsaw… and anyone who has read our blogs by now knows that we are serious about tech, and serious about restaurant reviews too!
Warsaw is a clean, modern tech-enabled city. Scooters are abundant and people revere those working in the IT industry. Poland has between 550k – 600k IT professionals and is one of Eastern Europe’s development hubs.
Krakow – a great mix of modern hustle and cultural depth
Insight:
Krakow is known as the cultural hub of Poland, with it’s well-preserved “old-town” buildings and infrastructure. It is the second biggest city for software outsourcing in Poland.
Story:
Our team from SA (Joburg-based – we don’t walk much) – traversed this beautiful city on foot. Immediately one feels a sense of pride that the locals have for their city. Krakow is a gem and the city perfectly maintains its cultural roots, while leaping into modernity.
What we worked on:
It is here where SoDa is based, which is the largest membership program for the software development outsourcing industry in Poland.
Working with local partners is enables the PYGIO model to scale, and so we started to search for niche specialists like Miquido, specializing in Web and Mobile dev. No doubt – a solid outsourcing company with a great track record in the EU.
Our Krakow trip ended with time at the N-iX office, (which is in the same building as the Miquido office… and many more outsourcing firms, some from Ukraine). N-iX is a global software outsourcing player with a few thousand folks working there, and yet we still felt that they were nimble and gave their teams a high level of autonomy.
We also met with a team from Ukraine, 4IRE Labs. These guys are cutting edge in FinTech and Crypto, and are building their own IP.
Wroclaw – Universities and friendly gnomes
Insight:
Wroclaw has almost 30 universities and colleges and is home to some 150k students. It also has an “old-town” feel to it.
Story:
Our final city for the trip is where we met most of our team. At PYGIO, most of the team works remotely. Some of our core functions are based in Wroclaw. Our team assembled at the central and well-crafted PURO hotel, who were excellent hosts and catered a 5-day conference for the P-team.
We also had the fortune of meeting one of Poland’s outsourcing success stories, Spyrosoft. These guys are one of the top firms in Poland – a true home-growth story, now listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Thank you to this team, who shared much of their most valuable resource with us – their time.
What we worked on:
Day 1: Working through our offering – PYGIO is a company that builds other companies, we solve business and technical problems.
Day 2: Marketing and a dreaded, but awesome photo shoot.
Day 3: Recruitment: we’ve attracted some of the best talent there is – how do we attract even more?
Day 4: Software Dev and Data Science – where are these industries headed?
One observation is that Western businesses (including SA business) tend to bucket Poland with Ukraine, and the rest of the Eastern European countries into one pool, painted with one cultural brush. This could not be further from the truth. Each country might have some similarities to the next, but the differences between each culture is noticable, unique and amazing.
Western investment into both Poland and Ukraine has only increased since the war started. Fortune 500 manufacturing firms have set up factories, tech hubs and R&D across Poland and Ukraine since 24 Feb, 2022.
