Ukraine has a fertile land both literally and metaphorically. For about a quarter of a century since its independence, the country’s brightest minds proved there is a lot to be proud of and a lot to offer the world. Ukrainian projects are increasingly attracting the attention of the global arena — they are innovative, and their practices are both valuable and worth adapting for foreign markets.
Think of Ajax systems: it is an example of a steadily growing hardware company, its products are acknowledged by Europe as the best and are sold in 70 countries across the globe. Or take Monobank: over 1 million clients, with a financial license in Britain. Grammarly, Petcube, Bitfury — all of these success stories reflect one crucial idea. Regardless of the challenges, hardships and trials Ukraine goes through, the power of its talent cannot be defeated.
Ukraine has turned on its robust digital capacity due to a number of factors. Being a fast-growing market means, if you do not do it yourself, your competitor surely will. Moreover, many domains do not have clearly defined leaders, so there is a high possibility a new one will emerge. The absence of legacy systems also helps a lot: Ukraine started to embrace tech in the mid-90s, whereas German Deutsche Bank core systems date back to the 60s. Bit by bit the circumstances have formed an environment where Ukraine can step on anothers toes, not to follow, but show the way and position itself as a tech trendsetter.
Big-time IT hub
In contrast with Belarus and Russia, ex-Soviet states, Ukraine can brag about its decentralized pool of IT pros — more competitive and much stronger. The industry of IT services has become the second largest export service industry: the landscape is highly competitive and new entrants arrive. Look at the figures: each year universities graduate 23 thousand engineers, yet the overall number of IT professionals excels 172 thousand. At the moment there are 245 IT companies with 50+ employees, and over 750 IT service companies. An array of global tech giants have R&D departments scattered all over Ukraine.
The IT ecosystem of the country is comprised of a vibrant mixture of associations, venture capital and product companies. Within the global outsourcing arena Ukraine proudly jumped up 4 positions in a year having landed on 20th (out of 55).
Digital economy
The flow of the digitization process greatly depends on governmental support and the according framework. Since 2018 the Ukrainian government started to take digitalization quite seriously by including it into one of the major prospects of the economy. The Action Plan and the Concept were approved for the period of 2018-2020. The specialized Council and its activities are aimed at effective implementation of the plan via establishing seamless interaction between government, society, business and public organizations.
The work of the Council in practice encompasses a vast number of areas. Specifically, legislative initiatives have to be developed, comprehensive IT and telecom analysis, development of the digital infrastructure, public security, IT service exports and many more.
Tech as major competitive driver
The major trend of today is that data is the main driver of competitiveness. Leveraging data provides the opportunity to develop new industries, create new jobs, establish anti-corruption frameworks and efficient governance. The concept of Internet of Things boosts efficiency of many economy fields as well as business processes; it drives transformational and incremental innovation, and attracts investment. Blockchain technology is the way to ditch analog in favor of digital to ensure decentralization and transparency.
Metinvest industrial holding addressed the digitalization process systematically. The separate company Metinvest Digital was created to manage huge IT infrastructure via a unified expertise center. While scaling IT projects, the company felt the urge to centralize IT function. Integrating progressive tech decreased the input cost, increased quality, and made the work of its employees intellectual, safe and comfortable. Digitalization of Nova Pochta resulted in 93-94 % brand awareness, the app is used by 2,6 million users, out of 174 million packages 10 million were issued online. NovaPay payment system tackled the service speed issue boosting it by 2 times. Tech works on multiple levels: superb UX is the spine of loyal customer relationships and business credibility.
Going cashless
Cashless lifestyle has been welcomed by Ukrainian citizens to a far greater extent than, let’s say, Americans — they still fill in forms and do not seem to abandon this habit. Privatbank is the major financial entity that has encouraged electronic payments in stores across the country. And a cashless boom happened: at the moment 50% of all payments are cashless. Ukraine joined the top 5 leading countries in NFC transactions. 12 financial entities are working with Apple Pay. In view of this tendency, Visa issued a rule for banks where all new branches opened in Ukraine must support contactless payments. Ukraine’s financial climate is favorable for neobanking growth; Nullgravity is currently engaged in several projects.
The business world of today (a successful one) is built upon an ecosystem-led model; the data is used as a glue between partnering companies, and cutting-edge tech frameworks provide secure network and communication between them. WOG adhered to this trend and renewed its app. The architecture goes far beyond gas: it includes an online shop, WOG PAY system, support of Touch ID, Face ID, Fingerprint. A driver can pay for gas in a car, pay for his coffee near a coffee machine, and calculate gas consumption for the chosen route. In other words, integrity is what people really need today and tomorrow. To stay ahead of the curve and maintain the trendsetter status, Ukraine must look much further than that.
Final thoughts
Business digitalization is not only about IT; it encompasses an array of aspects — sometimes overlooked, invisible and intangible. The reality of digital transformation is about bringing to the table a complex multi-layered solution to business goals. The process cannot be executed by a contractor who does exactly what he is told to. A digital partner delves into philosophy, mindset and pain points of the business. The synergy with a digital partner can help a project go global.
Igor Piatnytskyi is the vice president and business development director at Nullgravity, a Ukrainian product development company.
