Outsourcing providers in Eastern Europe are launching a drive to target companies in the UK.

A new body called the Central and Eastern European Outsourcing Association (CEEOA) has been set up to pool resources from associated groups in the Baltics, Ukraine, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania to increase the volume and quality of the region’s service delivery.

“Lack of international trade practice and modern business management competencies by central and east European vendors are among the factors keeping the region from realising the considerable opportunities created by globalisation,” said CEEOA.

While India, China, and the Philippines are the UK’s first-choice locations to offshore IT services, Eastern Europe is further down the list, according to the National Outsourcing Association (NOA).

NOA director Mark Kobayashi-Hillary said the new body is exactly the type of umbrella organisation the region needs.

“A single company only ever wants to achieve sales and growth,” he said. “The trade body can take a look at the bigger picture of education, training, and how the industry can improve the environment in which it operates.”

CEEOA is in discussions with the NOA to promote its vendors in the UK, according to Ukrainian Hi-Tech Initiative spokeswoman Iryna Dubenyuk. She said Poland might also join the group, which would give the organisation more weight considering the scope of Poland’s outsourcing market.

NOA chairman Martyn Hart said Eastern European firms should focus marketing efforts on specialist areas where the region can differentiate itself, such as complex financial software modelling, to overcome other potential limitations.

“They are likely to be constrained by the number of people in Eastern Europe to deploy this agenda,” he said.

“They also have a large concentration of IBM 360-type legacy hardware and people who know how such machines should be maintained.”