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UKRAINE
We’re continuing to watch the situation in Ukraine closely. The IT services sector there is a $5+ billion export industry. It represents around 4% of the country’s GDP, fueled by strong national support for STEM education, proximity to Western Europe and a deep software engineering heritage.
We’ve fielded a number of inquiries since publishing data about Ukraine’s IT sector, primarily around the potential impact to the sector should tensions escalate. It’s important to remember that the current situation is not new. Since 2014, bigger IT services firms have started to diversify their employees across several Eastern and Central European countries. They had to do this to continue to win and retain clients.
And, should the need arise, the region has demonstrated the ability to move people as part of a clients’ BCP plan – not just the work. For example, last year engineers were moved from Belarus to Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania.
I encourage you to check out the most recent research published by the IT Ukraine Association here.
ADM AND CLOUD
But what’s even more interesting is the degree to which new ADM scope will increase this year. That’s because we’re entering a new phase of enterprise cloud adoption. In the first phase, there was a lot of focus on lifting and shifting applications. But in this new phase, we’re seeing a significant increase in applications transformation as part of cloud transformation.
This means as goes cloud, so goes applications (see Data Watch).
DATA WATCH
GLOBAL PAYROLL
Global managed payroll and employer of record (EoR) provider Safeguard Global is acquiring EoR peer Global Upside. The acquisition is the third since 2019 for Safeguard and the next step in an aggressive five-year growth plan to build a comprehensive global-workforce-and-employment platform offering.
Here’s more on the acquisition from my colleague Pete Tiliakos.
M&A ACTIVITY
- Private equity firm Kedaara Capital combines two portfolio companies, managed services provider GAVS and product engineering firm GS Lab, into one new firm (link).
- UST acquires product engineering firm Accrete Hitech Solutions (link).
- Persistent acquires Microsoft Azure specialist Data Glove (link).
About the author
Stanton Jones
Stanton leads ISG's Index research, helping providers, investors and ISG clients make sense of the global IT services sector. Stanton’s weekly newsletter, the Index Insider, is read by thousands of market stakeholders each week. An ISG Digital Fellow, Stanton has been quoted in Fast Company, Forbes and CIO.com, and has appeared on national cable news.
