Effectiveness of Fiscal Incentives to Attract IT Investments: A Brazilian Case

Big companies of the Information Technology (IT) industry have been increasingly distributing on a world scale their units of software development to countries in Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America through offshore development centers as a strategy to increase competitiveness and reduce costs. In this context, emerging countries, like Brazil and its several measures focused on the development of hardware and software industry, have become an attractive option to receive investments in the IT sector. This article analyzes the major attracting factors for investments in Brazil by foreign companies of the IT industry and current challenges to keep the investments in that segment. This study is an exploratory case study based on the concrete experience of implementation of an offshore software development center, belonging to Dell Computer Corporation, in Brazil.