Belgium market
The Belgium market is small and competitive. Belgium is a small country. The gross domestic product (GDP) for 2020 was $515.3 billion.
Economic activity in Belgium grows 5.5% in 2021. GDP will reach pre-crisis levels. Growth will normalize to 3.3% in 2022 and 1.6% in 2023.
The unemployment rate will not rise above 6%.
There was no World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report ranking in 2020. Instead the Transformation Readiness of Belgium is compared to the neighboring countries: Germany, France, the UK and the Netherlands.
Belgium comes 2nd amongst its neighbors (scoring 63.6 out of 100) in the aggregated 2020 Economic Transformation Readiness Performance table.
Germany is 3rd (62.9), France is 4th (62.7) and the UK end 5th(61.4). The Netherlands is first with 66.3.
Services Industry
The Services Industry is becoming more and more important to the Belgium economy. In 2018, business services accounted for 56.5% of total gross value added. The industrial sector accounts for 13.8% and the construction sector for 5.3%.
Belgium ranks 27th among the 63 most competitive countries according to the Institute for Management Development (IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2019).
The IT sector consists of more than 40,300 companies, of which approximately 6,300 are one-man businesses. The largest part (94.5%) belongs to the service sector. More than 72% of the IT staff works for companies engaged in “design and programming of computer programs, computer consultancy and related activities“. Telecom companies are in second place.
The number of staff in the Belgian IT sector in 2018 was 106,600. This is an increase of 3.8% compared to 2017. In the period 2014 – 2018, the number of IT staff increased by 14.2% annually.
The largest growth came from the activities: ‘data processing, web hosting and related activities; web portals’ (+43,6 %) and ‘design and programming of computer programs, computer consultancy and related activities’ (+33,4 %).
Sources: European Commission, FOD Economie, K.M.O., Middenstand en Energie (Economic Policy Memorandum of January 2020, FOD Economie (ICT in Belgium)
Growth in IT services
The Belgian technology sector outperformed the European average in 2019.
The growth of companies providing IT solutions was 6%. This is because Belgian companies are going through the digital transformation at a rapid pace.
There is a large number of start-ups. This mainly concerns one-man businesses (Consultants without staff, carrying out project work).
For 2020, Graydon expects the Belgian market for IT services to grow by 2.3%. Companies are increasingly turning to external consultants. Opportunities lie in the field of process optimization, blockchain and IoT (Internet of Things).
A large part of the new providers in the market are starting one man businesses.
Sources: Computable, Graydon Insights
Growth requires people
Many Belgian companies indicate that their growth is limited by a shortage of IT-staff:
- 4.6% of the working population in Belgium has a job in IT
- 7.8% of companies indicate that they find it difficult to fill ICT vacancies.
What does this mean?
- Belgium companies see their growth potential hindered by a shortage of skilled IT personnel
- In marketing terms, Belgium is a “Red Ocean”: Unless you, as a new market entry, provide new or innovative IT services for this market, you have to work in a market where borders have been defined and accepted. The competitive rules of the game are well known. You will have to surpass the competition
- The expected growth in the IT sector and the simultaneous acute shortage of well-trained IT staff indicate that only an inflow of well-trained IT staff will allow for this growth
What to do?
- Demonstrate the availability of well-trained IT personnel (CVs, company profiles, references)
- Build relationships with companies that focus on process optimization, blockchain and IoT and IT service providers in general (they do have customers, but a shortage of well-trained IT personnel)
