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Comdex Scandinavia |
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Goteborg
(Sweden) 20 - 22 January 2004
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Date: 28.01.2004
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Categories: market information,
trends |
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Scandinavia: active in IT
off-shore outsourcing
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Scandinavian countries are considered one of the most active
and open to IT off-shore outsourcing offers from low cost
countries. Comdex Scandinavia is the largest IT trade fair
in the region. About 250 companies participated at the fair
mostly from Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Germany.
Interestingly, companies neither from Pakistan, India, China
or Russia, the classical IT and IT enabled services outsourcing
destinations, nor from other low cost countries and regions,
such as South-East Asia and the Middle-East, participated
- as exhibitors - at Comdex Scandinavia. However, a few
visitors from these countries were roaming around the floor
looking for prospective contacts. An exception was Latvia,
showcasing a collective stand at the fair (see:
country information Latvia for more details). Unexpected
exhibitor were the
Barbados Investment and Development Corporation and
the
Arizona Department of Commerce.
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Comdex Scandinavia
(see also
www.comdex.se)
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The key focus areas this year were: |
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Human language technologies
and language systems (dictionaries, translators,
language recognition, etc.). Document and character
recognition and voice processing.
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Security. As ever
in the last few years security was an important
issue at Comdex. A number of global IT security
companies were present at Comdex (F-Secure, McAfee,
Norman Data Defense Systems)
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Project management
systems. Project management and collaboration was
an important subject at Comdex. Various systems
were presented, from simple Microsoft Excel based
solutions to complex ASP models.
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Content management
solutions
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Document and workflow
management, business decision support system)
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Car technologies
and traffic systems (interactive navigation systems,
tracking, in-car telematics)
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Only a few ERP, CRM, HRM and other key business systems
were presented at the fair. See also the selected exhibitors
list. |
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The IT sector in Scandinavia |
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The Scandinavian IT market (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway)
amounts to Euro 29 billion. The economic downturn in the
manufacturing industry had a negative overall impact on
IT spending as well. The market declined in 2002 and showed
moderate recovered in 2003. Countries in the region experienced
an early reaction to the volatile general economic conditions.
Finland is expected to lead the recovery of the IT sector
in the region.
The slow growth of systems and infrastructure affected the
software market. The ever weak hardware market, and the
postponing of major IT projects did not help recovery. Stronger
demand was seen in the application solutions segment.
This was the driving factor of minimal growth in 2003.
In general the weak and unpredictable economic conditions,
the limited number of major IT projects and the declining
hardware and software investments continued to hamper spending
on IT and IT consulting services.
Outsourcing is in demand. This represent opportunities
for services suppliers also from low cost countries. Outsourcing
also means increased focus on operation management. The
demand for wireless technology is increasing which is expected
to drive infrastructure investments, new services and service
level innovations for the coming years.
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Open eyes on off-shore
outsourcing...
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The status of knowledge and understanding of IT off-shore
outsourcing among the Comdex exhibitors;
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Scandinavian companies,
at large, are quite open to learn about opportunities
in off-shore IT outsourcing
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Size does matter:
at Comdex quite a number of small (5 – 25 people)
companies exhibited. These enterprises in general
did not respond favorably to an outsourcing offer.
In most cases this is due to the fact that the
small management team (who are often also the owners
or major shareholders) are directly involved in
product design, development, support and sales.
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Larger companies
are very open for an outsourcing offer. However
many of them would have difficulties to separate
software design (high added value activity, which
they would not want to outsource on the first instance),
coding (low added value, labor intensive process),
customer service and support. This indicates a
serious problem with process maturity with a number
of organizations.
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The level of knowledge
and understanding of off-shore IT outsourcing shows
a mixed picture. Most information companies absorbed
from IT magazines, general press and from each
other. India, China and the Eastern European Countries
(Baltic States, Bulgaria, Poland) are mentioned
as known outsourcing destinations. Information
is not available on countries and opportunities.
Companies often do not know about specialized on-line
information sources on off-shore IT outsourcing.
However they were very positive on learning about
such an information source and receive regular
information on the subject. An area of particular
interest was; information on the risks involved
in off-shore outsourcing. Many companies mentioned
that they are regularly approached by companies
from low income countries with an IT outsourcing
offer. However they get information exclusively
on the positive aspects of outsourcing and the
countries. Only a few companies have structured
and reliable information on the risks involved
and the way risks can be mitigated.
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As a result of the
recent labor issues surfaced in the United States
companies expressed their concerns about their
employees and their reaction to an eventual off-shore
outsourcing decision.
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