Slovak companies provide a full range of IT services from value added innovative tailor made products to basic customer support and maintenance.
Slovakia offers many business advantages, such as relatively low wage costs for talented, adaptable and educated work force, foreign languages spoken at rather high level (English and German in particular), business friendly environment, rising labour productivity and educational institutions of high quality in the field of ICT.
Similarly important is the focus on connection between research and practical problems that is manifest in the activities of IT Association of Slovakia (ITAS), ICT clusters in Žilina and Košice, as well as the Central European Institute of Technology (CEIT) in the aforementioned cities.
For all these reasons, information and communication technology sector has a solid position in the Slovak economy that can be demonstrated not only by the presence of foreign companies (Dell, IBM, HP) but also strong domestic IT companies (ESET, Sygic etc.).
It is also one of a few sectors Slovakia can rely on when searching for sources of potential growth of country’s GDP. The gross value added of the Slovak ICT sector was 3 billion EUR in 2012 and it created 4.5% of Slovak economy’s GDP. In 2012, ICT sector employed more than 45 000 people. Within this group, telecommunication accounted for approximately 9 500 employees.
(Source: SARIO)
Marek Uhrín, Chief Executive Officer of NESS KDC communicated why the Slovak market might be a strong partner in Europe:
“Slovak market is recognisably well known for its high quality IT services. In Kosice, it has grown from 0 to 10,000 jobs within 10 years and there are still thousands of job opportunities in Slovakia, which need to be filled. Slovak programmers and IT specialists are valued because of their entrepreneurial spirit, innovative thinking, reliability, and high performance. The industry possesses significant support from national as well as regional government institutions, universities and high-schools. Companies in Slovakia are able to provide full range of IT services from value added innovative tailor made products to basic customer support and maintenance.”
“I am delighted to see the forming of “The Voice of Slovak Business” – the missing UK and Slovakia business connecting entity and platform, which I believe will surely prove its value for many starting or established businesses of any scale. The two key pillars – Information platform and Connecting people – can serve as the very base of future business growth in both Slovakia and Britain. I believe that in close cooperation with Embassies and Businesses, “The Voice of Slovak Business” will deliver new value for both countries and investments in right areas, right on time.”
