In this talk the speaker Dr. Svetlin Nakov explains the growth of the Bulgarian software industry for the latest 25 years and the key events in its growth. He gives rich statistical data about Bulgaria, its GDP, and its software industry, which generates nearly 5% of the GDP (in 2022), about the open developer positions (5K in Oct 2022) and the number of software developers in Bulgaria (54K in Oct 2022). The growth of the number of software developers in Bulgaria, software industry's revenues and their share in the national GDP are traced back from 2022 to 2005. Similar research about the Mongolian software industry is conducted and available data is compared to Bulgaria and USA. An interesting parallel is given between Bulgaria and Mongolia in terms of their software engineering talent and industry growth potential. Finally, Dr. Nakov gives his recommendations about how local Mongolian software companies can reach the global tech market and suggests to use the "outstaffing" business model, targeting the European tech industry and the Asian region. The talk is given at the "The Future of IT" forum in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (October 2022).

1. The Growth of the Bulgarian Software Industry
What Mongolian IT Companies Can Learn
from their European Counterparts?
Svetlin Nakov, PhD
Co-Founder and Innovations
Manager @ SoftUni
https://nakov.com
The Future IT Forum 2022 @
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

2. The Growth of the Bulgarian
Software Industry

3. 3
 Bulgaria is a small country in
Southeastern Europe (SEE)
 Population: 6.8 M in Bulgaria +
1.5 М abroad (Oct 2022)
 GDP: 84B USD (2021),
GDP per capita: 8293 USD / year
 Former socialistic republic
(dominated by Russia until 1990)
 Now part of the European Union
(EU) and NATO, a modern country
About Bulgaria

4. 4
 5K open positions in the software industry in dev.bg
 This excludes the broader ICT industry! Source: https://dev.bg
 5.1K open IT job positions at jobs.bg
 Source: https://www.jobs.bg/it
 54K professionals have already software-related jobs in BG
 Source: LinkedIn: People | software | Bulgaria
 55K professionals in the BG software industry (108K in the ICT)
 4600 software companies (2021) from 20+ countries
 Source: BASSCOM Barometer; Eurostat Employed ICT Specialists
Jobs in the Software Industry in Bulgaria (Oct 2022)

5. 5
Software Developers in Bulgaria (2005-2021)
4945
11955 12975
14531
16452
18029
22432
24762
29414
32562
37384
40818
46268
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
40000
45000
50000
2005 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Source: BASSCOM Barometers (https://basscom.org/industry/all-barometers)
SoftUni
starts
in 2014
54K devs in
Bulgaria in 2022

6. 6
Bulgarian Software Industry Revenue (in Mil EUR)
132
400 474 550 612 702
953
1099
1367
1695
2034
2329
2799
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
2005 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Source: BASSCOM Barometers (https://basscom.org/industry/all-barometers)
SoftUni
starts
in 2014
3.4B EUR dev
revenue in
Bulgaria in 2022

7. 7
Software Industry Share of Bulgaria's GDP
0.57%
1.11% 1.20%
1.47% 1.62%
1.80%
2.04%
2.25%
2.60%
3.00%
3.30%
3.80%
4.30%
0.00%
0.50%
1.00%
1.50%
2.00%
2.50%
3.00%
3.50%
4.00%
4.50%
5.00%
2005 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Source: BASSCOM Barometers (https://basscom.org/industry/all-barometers)
SoftUni
starts
in 2014
5% of the
Bulgarian GDP
in 2022 comes
from software

8. 8
 5000+ open dev
positions (Oct 2022)
 Mostly developers
 Most wanted:
 Java, JavaScript,
.NET, QA, DevOps
 Still small demand:
 Data science,
mobile dev, ERP
The Developer Job Landscape in Bulgaria

9. The Mongolian Software Industry

10. 10
 Mongolia is a small country (as
population) in North Central Asia
 Population: 3.4 M in Mongolia +
7 М abroad (Oct 2022)
 GDP: 15.1B USD (2021),
GDP per capita: 4121 USD / year
 Former socialistic republic
 Democratic country (from 1990)
About Mongolia

11. 11
 Disclaimer:
 Most probably the below data is not quite accurate!
 I believe the numbers are quite bigger
 450 IT jobs in Mongolia (data from Zangia.mn)
 Source: zangia.mn/job/list/b.4
 186 open IT job positions at LinkedIn
 Source: https://linkedin.com/jobs/search/?keywords=IT&location=Mongolia
 3K professionals have already software-related jobs
 Source: LinkedIn: People | software | Mongolia
Jobs in the Software Industry in Mongolia (Oct 2022)

12. Perspective for the Mongolian Software Industry
Industry Trends

13. 13
 Software jobs in Bulgaria / Mongolia / US in numbers (Oct 2022):
Software Jobs in Bulgaria / Mongolia
Metric Bulgaria Mongolia United States
Population 6.8M 3.4M 335.4M
GDP 84B USD 15.1B USD 24 880B USD
GDP per capita 8293 USD 4121 USD 69 288 USD
Dev companies 5 000 - 6 000 ? 300 - 400 ? 500 000 - 600 000
Dev jobs (open positions) 5 500 500 1 365 500
Software devs count 54 000 3 000 4 400 000
Devs as % of population 0.795% 0.088% 1.312%
Growth potential 1.6x 15x

14. 14
 This is how the software industry evolved in Bulgaria
Software Industry Evolution
Focus on the
local market
Outsourcing for
US and Europe
US and Europe
dominated market
1990-2000 2000-2010 2010-2022
 Small companies
(5-50 devs)
 Work mostly for
the local market
 Outsourcing
started
 Mid-size companies
(50-250 devs)
 Work mostly for US
/ Europe
 SAP and VMware
opened dev centers
 Big-size: 500-3000 devs
 Mostly owned by US and EU
business
 Hundreds of EU / US dev
centers in Bulgaria: HP,
Experian, LIDL, Software AG

15. 15
 How Mongolian software companies can compete on the global market?
 Customers from Europe  this will work
 Mongolia is 6-7 hours ahead  excellent time difference
 Good English is a must!
 Customers from the United States  challengeable
 Time difference will be a problem  9-12 hours behind from US
 Customers from Japan, Korea, Australia  this will work
 High competition with Vietnam, Thailand, India, Philippines
 Japanese and Korean software companies are already in Mongolia
Mongolian IT Companies on the Global Market

16. 16
 Several business models for entering the global market
 Outstaffing (hire remote tech professionals / rent devs)
 The easiest and fastest model to scale globally
 You just provide developers for a daily rate (without management)
 Outsourcing (develop software projects for remote customer)
 Riskier and slower (needs higher trust with the customer)
 Product Development (sell own products on the global market)
 Extremely complex and very little companies succeed
 Working through partners could be the key to succeed
Business Models for the Global Market

17. 17
 Build / attract / educate talent
 Build a pipeline for dev talent: educate junior devs  integrate
them into real-world projects  sell them to remote customers
 Good English  on the global market English is a must!
 Sales team
 Build a strong international sales team
 Direct sales in LinkedIn, attend events and expos, build relations
 Account management team
 Handle existing customers to ensure you deliver as expected
How to Enter the Global Market?

18. SoftUni – https://softuni.bg