American dreams in Romania

The Capital magazine had this week(article here in Romanian) a very nice story describing how an American IT entrepreneur(website here) came in 2000 to Bucharest and with an initial investment of 500 000 USD has opened a business which last year had a turnover of 1mil USD. According to the interview, the fact that he is able to make the software at half-price comparing to US, allows him to invest more in his employees (training, utilities, wages, etc). That shows to those out there believing that “outsourcing is evil for Romanian economy” that there is more to this industry than just cutting costs and cheap labour force, investing in the human capital, our 5 000 IT graduates a year looking for jobs.

While this is a fine exemple of such a business, actually nowadays , Romania is glooming of small IT companies, most of them start-ups of fresh IT graduates that look into foreign markets for clients, while the Romanian internal IT software market gradually grows to the level where it will offer also opportunities for them. As it is yet impossible to relay on the internal software market to absorb 5 000 or even more IT graduates a year, outsourcing is a very good opportunity for them to put into practice their skills and continue to develop professionally. Brain-drain has been a hot issues for years in Romania, especially in the IT field, outsourcing is now a better alternative.