Thinking about outsourcing your IT team to Armenia/Caucasus? You’re quite on the right track!
So, relying on the Armenian tech minds is one of the most strategic decisions you can make. And we at Collab Fabrik, specializing in sourcing, hiring and managing IT talent from Armenia, are here to help you thrive.
Armenia’s cultural background, combined with its high-quality education system, produces a unique blend of IT professionals.
Multilingualism: Armenians tend to be multilingual due to their country’s strategic location at the crossroads of Europe and Asia.
Problem-solving skills: Armenians have a rich history of overcoming political and economic challenges. As a result, they have strong problem-solving skills that are crucial in the IT industry.
Accustomed to remote working: You will see many people with laptops working from cafes or parks in the Armenian streets. Being a small country, remote work is already quite prevalent and accepted in Armenia. Hence, Armenian professionals are highly adaptable to remote work setups.
Cultural fit: Armenians have a strong sense of community and teamwork due to their close-knit family structures. This translates into great team players in the workplace, fostering a positive and collaborative working environment.
That’s a short list of benefits worth elaborating on.
Armenians are chess masters, literally – both as a game and as a state of mind. Don’t be surprised that within a small country, an Armenian professional is tackling projects with the same strategic agility as an IT department would elsewhere.
To better understand the potential of local talent, let’s break it down into what Armenians do when they build and expand IT companies. Then, let’s see how they approach outsourcing contracts.
Hearing about Armenia-born companies making it huge isn’t a rare phenomenon.
Firstly, they think and dream big – targeting the global, mostly US market, since the foundation. Confident in the quality and competitiveness of their products and services, Armenian tech companies scale aggressively. Most of them have great performance in their niche markets. As some of the examples, Disqo (audience insights platform) has raised $101.5M and has a headquarters in California. Krisp, an AI-powered voice clarity solution, also has its headquarters in California and managed to raise around $17.5. Another giant management software for home service businesses, ServiceTitan, has a history of $1.1B worth of funding. What do all these numbers confirm? The Armenian IT companies are not novice players in this game and can be highly trusted.
Secondly, they proceed to global expansion through their diaspora network. An estimated 10 million individuals of Armenian descent are spread outside the country in quite different regions. The geography includes the US, Europe and CIS. And though far from their homeland physically, every Armenian is attached to their roots and tries to help the progress of their country in any way they can. Hence, having close connections within a large diaspora network allows local IT companies to leverage resources and connections while scaling up. As a result, the Armenian tech industry has become truly global.
And what do Armenians look like when they choose to build IT solutions for their international clients, not a product for their own startup?
You can be quite sure that they are particularly loyal to long-term business relationship. This makes them highly sought after as outsourcing partners. That’s a national mental trait – every Armenian naturally becomes an expert in being friends and building trust. Many IT professionals from other countries are dedicated to living day-by-day. The Armenian persistent work ethic is generally directed towards a long-term perspective.
Being a small country still at the nascent stages of its economic development, Armenia offers comparatively lower labour costs than most Western and Northern European countries. This means that employers can get high-quality work done by experienced professionals at a fraction of the cost – with 50% savings, according to Collab Fabrik’s experience.
To compare, the average salary of an Armenian middle-level developer reaches around $1,258. Meanwhile, the same specialist in Germany will cost you around $3,000. A senior-level Armenian developer will cost your company around $3,061. In contrast, the same specialist in Germany requires a higher salary of around $3,600.
Armenia has a huge educational infrastructure preparing professionals for the IT industry. The country has everything from national and international universities to tech giants’ established learning centres and tech academies.
Besides the National Polytechnic University of Armenia and Yerevan State University, which are leading in technical education, there are also foreign ones, such as the French University in Armenia, the American University of Armenia, and Russian-Armenian Slavonic University that invest in engineering, software development, and cutting-edge technologies education. The latter also allows you to be sure that newly graduated IT specialists have language proficiency in French, English, and Russian on top of their Armenian mother tongue.
Coming to tech and IT centres in Armenia, students have options such as Microsoft Innovation Center Armenia, Picsart Academy, Armenian-Indian Center of Excellence, Synopsys Armenia Education Department, etc.
Lastly, there are Armath Engineering Labs (free education in STEM and accessible robotic laboratories) and TUMO Center for Creative Technologies (a free education for Armenian teenagers across web development, game development, 3D modelling, and more) that invest in students from their young years.
To wrap it up, outsourcing IT projects to Armenian professionals means that you will be working with highly educated and skilled specialists. Be sure they have a solid foundation in both technical knowledge and practical experience.
Official statistics show that around 40% of Armenians have basic English knowledge. Be sure this number is growing year by year as young professionals are more inclined towards improving their language skills.
Though Armenian is the only official language in the country, Russian and English are quite common as well. The older generation in Armenia mostly speaks Russian, while the younger one is more familiar with English.
Besides, Armenians love exploring Spanish, German, French, Italian, Persian and other languages. This makes communicating with international clients from these countries easier.
Compared to strictly mono- or bilingual professionals, Armenian developers often have a wider range of language proficiency.
Another super-convenient aspect of outsourcing to Armenia is the time zone. Armenia is situated in the GMT+4 zone that’s somehow in the middle of two big continents it’s located between – Asia and Europe.
During most months of the year, when a 10 am strikes in Germany, it’s 12 am in Armenia. So, there are no morning meetings that feel like night ones. Also, there are no evening calls that require you to stay up late.
Moreover, as Armenia is quite close to Europe, the distance between Yerevan and most major European cities barely reaches 3 hours of flight time. This makes it possible for project managers from both sides to schedule face-to-face meetings and maintain a strong working relationship easily.
Roughly speaking, you have two options to organise the legal employer-employee relationship with your Armenian remote IT team member.
Your company handles the registration, accounting, and legal obligations of your remote employee. You’ll need to open a branch in Armenia.
You cooperate with a local HR agency or EOR and outsource some processes to them. Ideally, you get an all-in-one service. So, you’ll get a local legal entity as your employee of record. This company takes care of all administrative tasks like onboarding and payroll. Even further, it takes care of your remote IT team’s management on-site.
Having 20+ remote teams built in Armenia for our European partners, we at Collab Fabrik strongly recommend you outsource it to a specialised local hiring agency. That’s especially beneficial for small teams just forming in Armenia. The time and financial resources you’ll need to spend on getting your own local entity might be too much for your current capacity.
Here are the key aspects we at Collab Fabrik can do for you quickly and professionally, instead of you spending your time and budget on it.
Yes, Armenia is a tech powerhouse with thousands of truly brilliant minds graduating each year. But as you need a specific set of skills and experience to succeed in your business, you need a rigorous testing process to get the right talent on board.
Interviews and detailed assessments of your remote candidate’s resume and portfolio, technical tests, and cases can take a lot of time and resources. Meanwhile, getting the wrong candidate might be a costly mistake for your project.
With a local team specialised in recruitment and HR, you can get all these processes done much faster and with the right focus on your specific needs.
You need to have a mother company or a branch of your company in Armenia to hire a team member legally in Armenia.
We know from experience that opening an entity, registering it with the government offices and setting up accounting takes a lot of time and resources. In some cases, it may take even longer than expected. Especially if you lack knowledge of local laws and regulations.
After all, if opening a branch in Armenia has the sole purpose of hiring a remote IT team of around 15 people, isn’t it better to leave it to a local specialised company instead and concentrate on your core business?
Collab Fabrik is based in Armenia and Germany. It has no legal entity issues, and is ready to take care of your local infrastructure. We ensure your remote team’s smooth operation in Armenia faster and with less expenses.
Even if you have one in your head office, having a local operational team in Armenia is not only helpful but also vital for your project’s success. With such a team, you can:
Many don’t think about this aspect as a necessary one. However, experience shows that missing it might cause misunderstandings and even conflicts in remote teams.
Want it or not, any country has its own specific bureaucracy and legal regulations.
In Armenia, it’s quite smooth sailing compared to many big countries. However, it still might take some time to get used to if you plan to organise the process yourself. Local specialised companies have already figured out how things work. So, they can help you save your nerves and resources by taking care of all necessary registrations, taxes and accounting for your remote team.
In contrast, you’ll need to spend more time developing your team members’ language skills and getting them used to local administrative procedures if you decide to take care of it yourself.
A very crucial aspect of outsourcing your team is to ensure they’re well integrated with the head office and know about your company’s values and culture.
Many of the remote team members we saw leaving even the highest-paying European companies told us that the management either lacked communication with them or was treating them as anonymous team members without their own important input.
So, a strong bridge between your remote team and the head office should be established. This ensures effective communication, integration and proper management. This guarantees you a long-form cooperation and a stable development of your business.
At Collab Fabrik, we take care of all these aspects for you to get a smooth working process. We concentrate on building an efficient remote team with proper communication channels, trust, and respect among all parties.
The last point is organising the cooperation between your head office and the remote branch.
The key to success here is establishing a clear structure of responsibilities, tasks and communication channels. If you don’t think it’s that important or can do it yourself without any team member from the head office being involved, experience shows otherwise. Lack of communication and unclear responsibilities might lead to delays in the project, misunderstandings and conflicts between team members.
A specialised local team can help you organise the structure and ensure effective communication between all parties, making sure your project runs smoothly and efficiently.
Hey!
Over 3+ years of experience as a local hiring agency, we’ve successfully helped European companies find the right talent for straightforward projects like Web Development to highly intricate positions for Cyber Security or Machine Learning.
Having 20+ teams currently working under our supervision with their European employers, we’ve success stories of building a complete team of backend, frontend, and data analytics teams within 4 weeks for a client looking to build a GPS tracker System/IoT-based device.
Quicker than you ever imagined, within three weeks, we have set up a team of machine learning experts to assist a rising startup in AI for a marketing project.
With the strong foundation of Armenia’s IT industry and a deep understanding of European project management and communication culture, we’re also here to help your company’s success story.
By the way check out our collaboration on app development.
For most roles, you’ll get the right candidate within 3 weeks of referring to us. And if you’re not yet sure which model to choose, a quick and free personal consultation will help us determine the most efficient way of working for you.
Armenia is a treasure trove of talented IT professionals, and outsourcing your remote team here can bring countless benefits.
However, it’s crucial to consider all the necessary steps and aspects before making the decision. The legal and bureaucratic procedures are only some of them.
Like entering a dark forest with no map or guide, outstaffing your IT team to Armenia without proper assistance and expertise can be a daunting and risky task.
That’s where Collab Fabrik comes in. With our extensive knowledge, experience, and local presence, we provide you with all the necessary tools and support for successful IT outsourcing in the Caucasus.
