Krakow IT and Outsourcing

Kraków has been attracting ­investors setting up service centres here for years and is now permanently inscribed on the list of the most popular locations in our part of Europe. The strong position of the city has repeatedly been reported in international ranking lists and reports such as e.g. Tholons Top Outsourcing Cities.

In my opinion, what prompts investors today to locate their investments in the city is the unique combination of the ­following factors.well trained staff, a cheap international draw for low end transient call center workers. It now seems the IT sector in Krakow is about to take off with VC's looking to invest in start ups, is Krakow Polands future silicon valley - your opinion.

Same happened to Ireland 15-20 years ago, then international companies got fed up paying Irish wages (and corporation tax) so jumped ship to cheaper countries. It'll happen to Poland too.

There is one big difference though and that's that Poland actually has it's own large IT company who is expanding into other countries so hopefully many IT jobs will remain in Krakow for so long as that company remains in the same hands.

Unfortunately It won't happen here, at least not over the next 15 years, that's for sure. There's no way salaries will get even close to "western" level and If a company decided to choose Poland over India 5 years ago, they won't be moving to India now or in 5 years, salaries there are growing much more than here. When "international companies" start leaving, It's a great sign actually, It means people in that region are not cheap anymore.

Well yea, that's what I meant, Ireland had half the country employed in some IT kinda stuff (OK slight exaggeration)
Ireland offered 0 corporation tax for these companies for their first 10-15 years of operating in Ireland and then when that time was up they left.


Try telling that to the 1000s of unemployed IT profs in Limerick, Kildare, Dublin, Cork.

Hey, look it's great that there are plenty of jobs here now at the moment in Poland, I just hope that the people running businesses here see what happened in Ireland and learn from the mistakes the Irish business leaders made. If earnings are kept lower here than the EU average, I'm OK with that so long as the jobs remain here.

But I dunno, I'm kinda scared for when the Euro currency is adopted here, it'll bring instant inflation and people will demand higher wages straight away.

Is it really so Bad in Ireland? I know that the country had big crisis, but I tough It was not affecting IT sector which was mostly job for international corporations, so local problems were not so important for them as long as taxes and salaries are not rising.

Put it this way, they reckon 220 people leave the country every single day......That's not a lot in Polish terms, but Poland's population is around 40million, Ireland's is less than 5m.

Plus IT companies, and businesses in general, are either downsizing (because of losing their corporation tax benefit) or the high costs of wages/property and other assets in Ireland or are moving....sure, just 2 years ago, Dell left Limerick, making almost 2000 people unemployed. They relocated to Poland..........I've no issue with that, I just mention it because we live here in Poland.

finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1015213.shtml
This link is a few years old[/url], but it shows that most international comps in Ireland wouldn't choose to go their again. The main reason being the cost of doing business there. We ruin ourselves by voting in greedy politicians, letting greedy bankers away with murder and our own love of having money in our pockets. The whole island got greedy, drunk on greed, and now those how cannot move away have to pay for it. Just desserts some would say. I wouldn't though. Ireland should've done what that Icelanders did.

Things are very bad in Ireland, it's not as reported on now, because it has somewhat stablized, but emigration is high, unemployment is high. Personally, I've only got 3 mates that are still in Ireland, everyone I used to hang out with has left for Australia, Canada or the US. Most head to English speaking countries because we're so bad at learning languages....sure we can't even be bothered to learn our own language.

However, socially many people back home say it's become better (not financially though) Ireland's never been rich and for a few years there in the 90s we had way more money than sense. Sure, we weren't used to it. It was like giving a teenager a million dollars and telling him to spend it like he wanted to....We were poor for donkey's years and now we're poor again......I suppose at least we had good fun while it lasted ;)

I think it'll come around again, next time the same mistakes won't be made though..........I feckin hope not anyway. One thing I hope everyone learns from it....do not invest in property. Ever.

Dell moved from Ireland assembly line jobs, not IT. But if really "Almost half of foreign companies based in Ireland regret decision" then it must mean something.

Poland and Krakow can't believe (and i doubt they do) that the outsourcing boom will last forever.

Poland advantage compared to Ireland is that polish market is 4 time larger than the irish, Money brought by Outsourcing companies is bringing the infrastructure to western levels, this will allow new companies to flourish and this is already happening. These new companies access not only the western but the "undeveloped" east. That's a huge potential, that ireland didn't have.

I can't be more excited about what's going on krakow the startup community vibes are something i haven't experienced anywhere. They are international (most meetups are in english) open and collaborative.

You can grab an idea on what's going on krakow IT's on this page:

krakowit.pbworks.com/w/page/5507981/FrontPage

That's not really important though is it, the could've been shelf stacking job/forklift drivers, the thing is they're gone, because Dell are too tight to pay tax in Ireland.

I wonder were they given a similar deal on coming to Poland.


I wouldn't really agree with that. International companies don't locate to Ireland for the Irish market, The Irish market has the same population as Silesia afterall. They moved there because of low/or zero corporation tax, were given free land/assets and they wanted bases for their European operations. Since then the level of English in Central & Eastern European countries has sky-rocketed and now they can relocate here and reap far greater profits. Hopefully, for all of us working in the sector, for the long-term.

Hii,

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To have kinda silicon valley we need also:
- cold war and government contrats
- great space, aviation, energetic and communication industry
- free economy oriented authoriries
- free creativity tradition
- a lot of money to spend
- good PR and some nice myths
- so on
However there are some advantages here:
- relatively high work ethic - more then in the other regions people prefer to work (even for less money) then take unemployment benefits
- dense populated region with a high birth rate - many people are heading to Cracow for knowledge
- young citizens and newbes - more creativity, more needs, more work, etc
- relatively good developed educational system - technical and other high schools
- self-reliance, individualism and creativity of local society
- well known trademark popular in many languages: cracow, krakau, cracovie, cracovia, krakko, etc
There are disadvantages too:
- high centralized country
- discriminatory government policy
- administration behaviour
- still weak regional self-id
- money, money, money
Well, may be just canyon if not valley?
Silicon canyon songs good and even has a historical explanation: name of Wawel castle comes from wąwer=canyon