11-th Annual Survey of the Software Development Export Industry of Russia

Dear colleagues!
Dear friends!

Let me bring to your notice results of the annual (this time already 11th) survey of the software development export industry in Russia.

The research was conducted by RUSSOFT (Nonprofit Partnership of Software Developers, RUSSOFT Association) from February to April 2014.

More than 130 market players were interrogated within the research, additionally a wide range of sources of information were studied, expert judgments were received from dozens of CEOs of software development companies.

The last year has witnessed the global contraction of economic growth and a slowdown in the Russian industry. This period was also marked by the ‘rebound’ in the Russian IT market dynamics; the market volume practically remained at the previous year’s level. Nevertheless, in 2013 the Russian software development industry continued to develop actively, having increased its export almost by 17% and having reached the export volume of 5.4 billion dollars. The last year was notable for strengthening positions of Russian software vendors in the so-called Magic Quadrants of Gartner. Besides Russian service companies strengthened their positions in the international ratings of outsourcing service providers (Global Services, IAOP). For the first time the growth of the share of small companies in the total export volume became evident reflecting the performance results of measures undertaken by the State Institutes in the recent years.

Unfortunately, prospects for export growth will not depend only on companies themselves but on political developments, particularly on situation in Ukraine. Russian companies feel appearance of political barriers although typical only for clients who lack experience in working with Russia. The relationships with loyal clients remain unchanged, fruitful and friendly. De-escalation of political tensions between Russia and the West is unavoidable thereupon business activities will certainly come up.

Taking this opportunity, I would like to thank ConfirmIT and Toy Opinion for their effective support of information collection, and also to thank PROMT for their excellent translation of report into English. Also I would like to express gratitude to our dear colleague Andrey Terekhov, professor of St. Petersburg University, for his precious remarks and advice, and to Andrew Rysin for the outstanding design of this report. And certainly, I wish to give kind words of gratitude to our analyst and writer Dmitry Zhelvitsky.

We are very grateful to the Association of Computer and Information Technology Companies (APKIT) and to our sponsors: Auriga, Artezio and Genesys for supporting the research.

Many thanks to all survey participants who provided information on their companies and thus contributed to the overall success.

With best regards,
Valentin Makarov
Executive Editor
RUSSOFT Association President