russian software developing industry and software exports

Chapter 4.
Overview of Business Environment
for Software Development in Russia
Based on the results of the poll, the business environment for software developers has generally slightly
improved in the past year. This statement somewhat differs from the data of the same poll related to the
evaluation of the state policy in the field of support for the IT industry in 2 recent years (according to these
data, evaluations of the state policy have worsened).
At the same time, respondents give higher evaluations of the state of infrastructure, supply of staff,
resolution of problems with taxation and bureaucratic barriers.
HUMAN RESOURCES
AND THE EDUCATION SYSTEM
The supply of labor has slightly improved mainly
owing to the inflow to the market of quite big
numbers of specialists with high or good qualifications
that were left jobless after massive dismissals
in IT departments of many Russian companies.
Consequently, this was a partial compensation for the
insufficient supply of staff.
Apart from this, due to the decrease in demand
in the global market the growth of demand of
service and product companies for human resources
has reduced a bit. Only around a third of 15 major
software development exporters stated their plans
to expand their staff in 2009. As a rule, the projected
increase in the level of staff does not exceed 10-15%.
In previous years practically all of these companies
planned to actively recruit new employees (30%-50%)
and many of them even managed to do so.
At the same time, given a possible growth in
demand for the services of Russian developers owing
to a certain economic stabilization in the world,
the situation in the labor market again will start to
aggravate. Therefore, it may be said, that certain
improvements are likely to be short-term, if only the
crisis in the IT market does not last too long.
Moreover, despite this improvement around half
of the companies evaluate the supply of staff as
«unsatisfactory» (44% gave a mark «poor», in 2007
this figure was much less – 40%). It can be concluded
that nothing has essentially changed in the labor
market except for a temporary increase in demand. As
a year ago, the lowest level of dissatisfaction with the
staff issue was registered in Moscow (33%). Outside
the capital this indicator grows: in St. Petersburg –
39%, in all other cities – 50%. Moreover, respondents
representing Moscow most frequently evaluated
the supply of staff as «good» (21% against 13% for
all other companies).
In recent years major Russian companies
established in the regions their development centers
and increased their staff. Having more financial
opportunities than other companies, they successfully
attracted staff from local companies, and respondents
representing numerous small local firms turned out to
be less satisfied with the situation in the labor market.
It should be noted, that companies oriented
mainly at export are more dissatisfied with the marker
situation than companies earning the bigger part
of revenue in the domestic market (the difference
between them is rather big, however around half of
respondents in both groups are not satisfied with the
overall situation ).
Working for international markets sets higher
requirements for specialists at least due to the fact
that participation in projects of foreign partners
presupposes, as a rule, knowledge of a foreign
language (English). Apparently, general dissatisfaction
with the quality of staff reflects the shortage of
specialists proficient in English and other foreign
languages. This is proved by answers concerning
the number of such specialists working for our
respondents (for more details on this issue and the
situation in the labor market see Chapter 6).
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Human resources availability and education system
52%
43%
39%
2008 г.
Poor
45%
up to 50%
Poor
9%
13%
44%
Satisfactory
50%
Satisfactory
44%
2009 г.
47%
13%
Good
Human resources availability and education system
by the share of export revenues in gross earnings
3%
over 51%
Good
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