Why Lviv

In 2009 audit and consulting company KMPG selected Lviv to be among the most potential cities for IT outsourcing in the upcoming future. It highlighted few of city's main competitive advantages that make it stand out among other IT centers in Ukraine.

• Lower market entry cost, compared with the capital and other European cities
• High quality of human capital: 2 high class universities yearly graduate thousands of highly qualified professionals
• Cultural proximity: Lviv was a part of Poland for a long time, and has become culturally closer to Europe, than other Ukrainian cities
• Location: Lviv is located close to important European business centers – Berlin, Zurich and Amsterdam
• Infrastructure: City’s hosting of EURO 2012 has contributed to significant improvement of existing infrastructure

What Hollywood, NASA and Lviv Have in Common

At the end of 2011 Lviv has over 30 IT companies, that work in the fields of IT outsourcing, programming and web development.  Most IT companies have experience working with an impressive list of European and US clients, such as – Boeing (BA), DaimlerChrysler (DCX), General Electric (GE), Citibank (C), and NASA, and many other Fortune 500 and NASDAQ 100 companies. Lviv companies have been named in the best outsourcing service provider list 2011 Global Outsourcing 100® (SoftServe Inc.), achieved 100% customer satisfaction ranking in Microsoft Customer Satisfaction Survey (Eleks), worked with high-profile clients like Open Text (N-IX) and collaborated with Hollywood for some of the most well-known productions as "Avatar", "Harry Potter" and others (GlobalLogic).

How Lviv Attracts High Quality IT Talent

With over 6000 people already employed in Lviv IT sector, city expects over 20% growth in talent demand until 2015. Anticipating the need for growth in IT talents pool, leading local IT companies were the first in Ukraine to establish a cluster, in collaboration with local Universities and city council. This innovative public-partnership has proven to be a significant support for the growth of business services sector. Promotional video Find yourself in Lviv! that positions Lviv as a major destination for IT talent in Ukraine launched the start of the battle for IT talents. Apart from the PR offensive, IT-BPO Cluster has been actively working on improving the skills of local IT students and professionals. Additional English courses for IT students were introduced with the cluster support and a soft skills training programme is in plans for 2012.

In 2010 IT and BPO sector has also received strong support from the local government, having been included among city's top priorities in Lviv Development Strategy for 2015. The city has continuously expressed its commitment to support companies interested to establish themselves in Lviv.

With innovation in cross-sector collaboration, over 1000 IT graduates supplied by local Universities and a growing number of high quality professionals joining Lviv IT industry from other parts of Ukraine, the city is continuously improving its capacity to accommodate the needs of IT industry, and transforming itself to a major outsourcing destination in Eastern and Central Europe.

With inputs from Oksana Arkhypchuk, Project Co-ordinator--PPV Knowledge Networks,Ukraine.