Outsourcing to Central and Eastern Europe: A Data-Informed Review
Central & Eastern Europe: A premium outsourcing hub or just a cost-cutters' paradise?
Multinational brands invest millions into outsourcing their customer operations. Yet, so many buyers remain trapped in a frustrating loop: they switch providers, chase the lowest hourly rates, or over-index on offshore regions, only to find that CSAT and quality drop and the cost of fixing failures completely eats away at their projected savings.
The mistake isn’t outsourcing; it’s evaluating location and talent through a pure line-item lens rather than operational reality.
This session explores what it actually takes to build a high-performing, resilient nearshore operation in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). It moves beyond the generic regional labels to examine how to leverage CEE’s unique mix of highly educated talent, deep technical capabilities, and undeniable cultural proximity to maximize the value generated per dollar spent.
Key points discussed
- Total cost of support vs. chasing the lowest hourly rate
- Regional talent strengths across the CEE landscape
- Where AI genuinely helps in multilingual support, and where empathy still wins
- How CEE delivery centers built real operational resilience
- Moving from vendor to strategic partner
Speakers
Joel Walker
Co-founder
The Knowledge Group
Explains why risk-averse buyers keep defaulting to predictable, high-volume regions even when nearshore locations deliver better outcomes.
David Rickard
Partner
Everest Group
Breaks down why CEE has evolved into a premium, multilingual tech-delivery hub, making the case for evaluating total cost of support instead of upfront FTE pricing alone.
Anna Mazur
Customer Service Delivery Leader
Simply Contact
Shares the frontline reality of running multilingual teams across five European locations, where operational flexibility and a result-oriented workforce determine partnership success.
