Natural French-Belarusian IT cluster!
If there is a buzzword in the world of promotion of innovation, it is the concept of cluster (Sofia Antipolis in France, the Silicon Valley, Rd 128, Cambridge shire in the UK, etc.). Despite that nobody really knows why things are working sometimes and sometimes not (such as the IT Fornebu in Oslo), clusters are so over-rated that you have public and private initiatives all other the place and Eastern Europe is no exception.
All these initiatives in the Eastern Baltic are of course welcome but unfortunately often inadequate and over-optimistic, sometime they are even misguided. According to the OCDE definition on what is a cluster, there is no to my knowledge any ICT cluster in the Eastern Baltic region despite some marketing noise from Riga.
Knowing this, I was very surprised to discover a natural and real “baby-cluster” in Minsk. It involves 3 independent IT companies working mainly for the French market! This is more than just a punctual collaboration. It is actually quite a cluster for many reasons and one of them is a high-level of interaction between those companies, which have a separate ownership (one is owned by a Belarusian entrepreneur, another is affiliated to IBM, and the last one is the result of a French international entrepreneur). They collaborate on several levels (project level, HR level, etc.). The last reason is essential and missing in most so-called clusters in the region.
This cluster, naturally, established to answer the need of each other and the one of very large customers. It was completely spontaneous (the result of the initiative of one actor) and is sustaining and developing without the help of external / public support.
And, that, is remarkable on its own right!
All these initiatives in the Eastern Baltic are of course welcome but unfortunately often inadequate and over-optimistic, sometime they are even misguided. According to the OCDE definition on what is a cluster, there is no to my knowledge any ICT cluster in the Eastern Baltic region despite some marketing noise from Riga.
Knowing this, I was very surprised to discover a natural and real “baby-cluster” in Minsk. It involves 3 independent IT companies working mainly for the French market! This is more than just a punctual collaboration. It is actually quite a cluster for many reasons and one of them is a high-level of interaction between those companies, which have a separate ownership (one is owned by a Belarusian entrepreneur, another is affiliated to IBM, and the last one is the result of a French international entrepreneur). They collaborate on several levels (project level, HR level, etc.). The last reason is essential and missing in most so-called clusters in the region.
This cluster, naturally, established to answer the need of each other and the one of very large customers. It was completely spontaneous (the result of the initiative of one actor) and is sustaining and developing without the help of external / public support.
And, that, is remarkable on its own right!
posted by Laurent Potet at
1/09/2006
2 Comments:
EPAM, IBA and ...? :)
By
rydel23, at 10 January, 2006 05:13
I see that my "baby-cluster" could be seen like this! However a cluster gathering almost 3,000 staff in 2 companies (abeit not all based in Minsk) would not be called "baby". No actually the 2 leading balerusian ITO companies have nothing to do with this cluster. The 3 companies just aggregate less than an hundred staff (15+45+25), far from the numbers shown by EPAM and IBA.
Happy New Year to you!
By
Laurent Potet, at 10 January, 2006 08:09
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