Macedonia, a hidden gem nestled in the heart of the Balkans, offers many opportunities for foreign companies seeking to leverage the benefits of outsourcing employees, functions, and tasks.
With its strategic location, growing talent pool, and cultural compatibility with Western business practices, Macedonia has emerged as a leading destination for nearshore outsourcing, particularly for companies from the UK, Western Europe, and the United States.
The Macedonian Advantage
The essence of Macedonia’s appeal lies in its highly skilled, well-educated, and assertive workforce. From IT and software development to finance, sales, marketing, and administrative support, Macedonia’s talent pool is both diverse and proficient, capable of meeting the varied needs of foreign employers.
This versatility is underpinned by competitive labor costs, which are 40-70% lower than those in the UK, US, and Western Europe, without any compromise on quality.
Cultural Insights
Macedonian professionals are culturally aligned with Western business norms, processes, and management styles. They are assertive communicators, open to constructive feedback, and proactive in providing solutions. These are key success factors when managing remote teams or outsourcing employees.
The workforce in Macedonia is characterized by its loyalty, creativity, and ability to think pragmatically about business needs and operations. These attributes are invaluable in today’s dynamic business environment and global workforce.
Leveraging Location and Quality
Macedonia’s geographical and temporal proximity to major European markets is a significant advantage.
Being just an hour ahead of the UK and Western Europe means that businesses can enjoy seamless collaboration with their Macedonian teams.
Furthermore, the strong English language proficiency, coupled with many bilingual speakers of German and French, ensures smooth communication and integration into global teams.
The Connect Difference
Connect Outsourcing leverages the potential of Macedonian talent. Founded with the belief that talent knows no borders, Connect provides access to the top 3% of Macedonia’s talent pool, offering foreign companies a competitive edge.
By charging zero markup on labor and hand-picked talent selection, Connect ensures that businesses and their staff both benefit from a fair and transparent outsourcing model.
Tailored Recruitment and Seamless Integration
Connect’s approach to recruitment is both swift and thorough, ensuring that businesses can quickly onboard highly qualified candidates who are a perfect fit for their needs.
The process mirrors onshore recruitment practices, with Connect handling everything from initial interviews to contract execution and onboarding, making the transition to working with a Macedonian team as smooth as possible.
Expanding Horizons
While Macedonia’s size may seem like a limitation, it is, in fact, one of its strengths. The close-knit community and strong social networks mean that good news travels fast, attracting more skilled individuals to the opportunities presented by outsourcing.
Connect’s expansion into neighboring countries further broadens the talent pool available to businesses, ensuring that no matter the scale of your needs, Macedonia and its surroundings offer a viable, cost-effective solution.
The short answer is no.
Most Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) teams start off with 2 to 6 staff, and scale from there. Unless you are looking to hire 500 people within a month, no place is going to be too small to hire and grow your team.
Ironically, the larger a remote team grows, the easier it is to recruit in smaller places.
Macedonia’s size is its strength, not its weakness. Good news spreads fast, and community and social networks are strong. This means makes it easier to find the right cultural and technical fit when you’ve already got a few people in your team.
Population and socio-economic conditions
Macedonia is a small country in Southeast Europe with a population of approximately 2 million. It is a safe and pleasant place to live if one can make a decent living. The major cities service most of the ICT and outsourcing industry. Excitingly, a smaller regional cities are quickly becoming hubs for remote staffing. This is a refreshing trend for highly skilled regional communities, who can now keep their young IT workers in town.
The country’s mixed economy and well-advanced ICT sector make it an attractive growth market . A growing number of citizens are working for foreign firms. These firms offer considerably better pay and conditions than the public sector. The staff are comfortable with remote work infrastructure. Remote working sensibilities are slowly becoming second nature, especially with amongst younger workers.
The somewhat inconvenient truth is, like most other BPO geographies, Macedonia has the three key realities necessary to be a BPO centre:
- Oversupply of highly skilled educated workforce for local needs.
- Labor market used to working with or in foreign companies.
- Underemployed 18 – 35 year old labor market who speak English and are tech savvy.
Even with EU integration and growing standards of living dominating the political agenda, Macedonia will remain a competitive location for BPO operations in the heart of Europe.
IT and Business Process Outsourcing in Macedonia
Foreign companies, of all sizes and selling all sorts of services and products, have been using Macedonian talent for decades for the reasons above.
Modest estimates posit the growth of the Information and Communication Technology industry in Macedonia at 8% year on year. The International Trade Administration suggests it is as high as 15%. More and more well-educated English speakers are joining the industry to work for foreign companies. This is not a controversial trend. A growing number of foreign companies are advertising job openings on Macedonian job boards every month. And every semester, more students are signing up for ICT courses or improving their skills with short courses like Brainster.
At a practical level, most Macedonians in this sector are more comfortable working irregular hours than their Western European counterparts. Likewise, most already have experience with USA and UK based development and IT companies. Naturally, the experience differs. Some may have developed complex software for SaaS companies. Others may have ran the digital marketing campaigns for leading online brands. And, others may have years of experience in customer service and success with foreign citizens.
What’s next for BPO in Macedonia?
Despite spending the better half of the last century under a planned economy, Macedonia’s corporate culture is closer to the West than the East. For a client, the interview, onboarding and management of your remote team won’t feel too much different from home. Equally, Government investment and policy around BPO exports is refreshing and solid.
It’s a win-win scenario for everyone involved. The client enjoys high quality labor at half the price than onshore. The staff member takes home a very competitive salary and enjoys good working conditions. And the Government reaps the tax benefits of a growing export business which leaves no mark on the environment and keeps smart people in the country.
With initiatives like the Mini Schengen Zone, BPO providers are able to expand into neighbouring countries who enjoy similar literacy levels, skilled workforce and corporate culture. This offers clients with a larger pool of candidates and resources to tap into.
Macedonia enjoys fast and accessible internet. This is coupled with stable advanced IT infrastructure and multiple redundancies for any case. For instance, unlike BPO companies based in South East Asia, Macedonia isn’t affected by bad weather which can destroy infrastructure or bring down communication systems.
This underscores the suitability of Macedonia as an ideal labour market, whether it’s for 1 or 500 hires.
Conclusion
Outsourcing to Macedonia is not just about cost savings; it’s about accessing a pool of talented, culturally compatible professionals who can contribute significantly to your business’s growth and success.
Whether you’re a startup seeking flexible talent to fuel your growth or a large enterprise looking to build a dedicated, multi-disciplinary team, Macedonia offers proven options to meet your outsourcing needs.
With Connect, you have a partner that not only connects you with the best of Macedonia’s talent but also ensures a smooth, productive collaboration that benefits everyone involved.