Demand for IT software consulting is growing as virtually all and every enterprise tries to adopt a combination of software solutions that increase efficiency, help boost sales, and lower overall costs of running a business. It is a multimillion business that is well-developed in technologically advanced countries like the United States and most of Europe, while a rapidly growing number of IT consultants from outside these countries are emerging as major market players.
IT advisers and software developers based in Asia/Pacific region, mainly in India, as well as peers in Central and Eastern Europe are growing in strength and offer high-quality services at an affordable price, giving their Western counterparts a run for their money. IT consultancies based outside Europe and the U.S. and Canada gradually evolved into reputable service providers offering highly competitive services in the field of software estimation, management, implementation, administration, and deployment.
During the past couple of decades, IT software consultancy and IT outsourcing are among the main driving forces behind a flourishing worldwide market for software services as well as development and implementation of configurable and customizable software solutions aimed at business customers. Recently, cloud computing gave a boost to this sustainable trend, allowing corporations to outsource even more business processes and procedures to remote third-party IT consultants. Nevertheless, traditional IT consultancy services are still dominating the market for software consultancy services.
Usually, startup software consulting firms offer specialized services; but even seasoned Silicon Valley veterans admit that IT consultants from India and Eastern Europe managed to grow into full-scale services unbelievably fast, riding the wave of new technologies and enjoying lower business costs. Typically, payroll costs are responsible for a major portion of overall business costs of an IT consulting firm because IT experts are among the highest paid professionals.
IT professionals outside Western Europe and North America, however, earn significantly lower than their Western world counterparts, thus enabling IT software consulting service providers in India, Eastern Europe, and Latin America to price their services at highly competitive rates. On the other hand, one should bear in mind that different software outsourcing centers specialize in different types of services, with many U.S.-based corporations outsourcing their R&D activities mainly to India, for example.
Furthermore, modern IT consultancy services are covering many aspects of a business and often involve management advisory services as well as thorough due diligence required to estimate, plan, and implement the best fit. It was in the past when IT software consultants were engaged mainly in implementation, maintenance, and support services. Contemporary IT software consulting is more about deployment of applicable and working strategic solutions, rather than implementation of a single software product, thus making the IT consultants major players in today's business process.