Employment Frontier
According to Dataquest, the Belarusian ICT market is ranked among the ten largest in Eastern Europe, Belarus' share being about 2 percent and that of Ukraine and Russia being 4 percent and 26 percent, respectively. Despite this small market size, Minsk has an estimated 40,000 software developers.  

While a typical Belarusian IT-services provider is a small-dedicated team of less than 100 employees, there are also large-scale enterprises such as EPAM Systems (more than 3,000), IBA Group (more than 2,000 employees) and SaM-Solutions (more than 400).

Minsk is famous for its skilled engineering resources. And the IT industry here is engaged in custom development and high–end software services like mainframe systems and applications development, e-business solutions, SAP solutions and other ERP systems. 

Threats
Bureaucracy and tight government control in Minsk are a few deterrents for businesses. On the other hand, the risk of data theft is minimal since the city has joined the Copyright Act after the Geneva Conference of 1996.

“We recommend our clients that they should not establish legal entities of their own because the registration procedure might take several months,” said Sergei. “It is much easier to outsource their projects to local IT companies [rather than establishing their own] that are well-established business and experienced service providers.”

Belarusian software development companies have proven themselves to be reliable and effective partners of many foreign clients like Goodyear and Coca-Cola. And the highly qualified specialists, low cost of service, and geographical and cultural similarity with EU countries makes the capital city of Belarus a capable outsourcing destination, which is still unexplored.