Offshore: A few words about the Gartner seminar in London…

You must be thinking that this post is already obsolete, but hey, better late than never… I usually write a little something about each professional event that I attend. The Gartner Outsourcing and IT services summit will not escape the rule…It was a first experience in London for Pentalog last June, and for other Moldovan companies that were represented on the stand organized by ICTAM. The space for exhibitors or “solution showcase” was smaller than what I expected: around twenty companies, mostly in the heavyweight category of outsourcing (Wipro, Getronics, Tata, Siemens , Infosys, etc.). Needless to say, we felt a little bit “small”, no easy access to visitors, who gave me the impression of being over there only to visit their current suppliers and of course attend the conference rather than to study the proposals of potential new providers. There were also some national pavilions: Canada, Brazil, and Morocco with Casanearshore. Our biggest competitor in Moldova, which had announced their participation, was a no show. We made a few contacts that are interesting but certainly they will not give us any business in the short term.Concerning the conferences I had a chance to attend, and especially those conferences that referred to the future of offshore, I was surprised and disappointed, that the speakers barely mentioned Romania and Moldova was never even mentioned, either for IT or BPO in Europe. Vietnam was hardly even mentioned, neither. It is true that Gartner clients are companies whose sales are expressed in billions of euros. And it was clear that the conference addressed these bosses who require teams of several hundred people, and therefore are more likely to talk about countries like India. This is unfortunate because the smaller countries who have gained a certain maturity such as Romania have a role to play in the Global Sourcing strategies of these large companies, through their skills, experiences and having learned how to exploit “niche” markets. They are carriers of added value compared with the usual heavyweights. We can and will demonstrate this at Gartner in the years to come…And finally a few pictures to show the Gartner exposition and London…