Polish IT - a great exporter, a developing buyer
In recent months, Polish IT companies have been operating very dynamically on two levels – exporting IT services on an increasing scale and… taking over foreign companies.
Polish IT export in full swing
In the report of the Polish Development Fund, we can read that in 2020 Polish companies sold IT and telecommunications services abroad worth over PLN 37 billion. This is a confirmation of a high pace of development in this area of our export, that has been maintained for several years.
PDF information, as well as GUS data, have been showing a clear, interesting change for some time: foreign entities order less and less simple solutions or ready-made products in our country, and more and more complex, competent-based services. It is fertile soil for companies specializing in outsourcing.
The share of IT services in total Polish exports has remained strong since 2019, above 10%. This is one of the best results in the European Union.
More resources, smart shopping
The use of the unquestionable intellectual capital of Polish teams is the most important, but not the only, component of growth. Foreign principals expect contractors to be highly flexible in terms of technology and staff. Therefore, at a certain level of development, direct capital expansion outside the country is necessary. The growing financial potential of Polish enterprises more and more often enables them to take over foreign companies. This makes it easier to handle complex projects away from Poland.
Such a purchase in October this year was made by Transition Technologies MS S.A., which became the owner of 56% of the shares of the Danish ConCor, specializing in the sale of IT services for large and medium-sized companies.
The jointly provided services will be based on near-shoring from Poland, i.e. outsourcing of services to geographically and culturally close regions as part of cooperating teams.
Thanks to such transactions – along with the scaling of sales of services – the company is to achieve the position of a global provider of IT services in the near future.
This is how Adam Kaczmarczyk, Operational Director and board member comments on the company’s ambitions:
We have grown more than 17 times in the last 7 years, and we are not satisfied with this pace. We want to add acquisitions to our continuous organic rise and thus increase the pace of growth. Foreign acquisitions are also part of the strategy of building a global range of our services. I believe that a company with Polish roots can successfully compete with global corporations.
Poland – is it really technologically innovative?
The information, that Poland ranks only 32nd among 63 countries included in the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking, seems somewhat ambivalent. The list took into account such criteria as: education, technological knowledge, capital invested in technology development and business agility. Only 5 places higher, unexpectedly, was Japan, which is associated with technology and innovation as hardly any other country.
Marcin Kapuściński – Transition Technologies MS
