Datacom lifts WA presence

IT services company Datacom Systems AU has expanded its presence in Western Australia, recruiting extra staff and transferring the head of its public sector practice to Perth.

New Zealand-based Datacom has nearly 100 staff in WA. This is a small part of the group’s overall operations – it has 3,000 employees across Australia and a similar number in its home market.

Group chief executive Greg Davidson, who was in Perth for the opening of the group’s new St Georges Tce office, said Datacom saw potential to expand in WA, helped by its growing presence in the public sector.

As one of three major GovNext IT contractors, it provides telecommunication and network support services to 26 state government agencies, including the Department of Finance and the Department of Fire & Emergency Services, across 280 sites.

Mr Davidson said digital transformation programs like GovNext required patience.

“We’ve got a history of a similar agreement in New Zealand behind us,” he said.

“The government over a long period saved quite a substantial amount of money in the infrastructure space through a transformation like this and adoption just took a long time.”

Datacom’s head of public sector Mark Muru said the change management task was nearly always underestimated in these programs.

“GovNext really does put in a great foundation for the government’s strategy and it has really built up some momentum now,” he said.

“We see a good amount of growth, with the large breadth of services we can offer, especially in the government sector off the back of what we do in New Zealand

“Our experience there will be invaluable here.”

Mr Muru previously had oversight of the WA and ACT markets from Wellington, but has now transferred to Perth

Datacom has partnered with local business Kinetic IT and global telephony firm Intrado to roll out the GovNext services.

“We estimate there have been 30 jobs created in WA with us and our partners,” Mr Davidson said.

“That is one of the good things that has come out of this agreement.”

Head of WA Keith Morrison said the group was actively recruiting to support its local growth.

“We’ve really focused on our local capability to deliver GovNext because we knew it was going to be a key factor for the state government,” Mr Morrison said.

"Partnering with local companies, especially in the regions, is a part of that.

“We can also leverage our learnings (from New Zealand) and other teams for expertise.”

Mr Davidson said Datacom was targeting growth in other sectors, including local government.

Manjimup was the first local council to go live with a new platform Datacom has developed for the sector.

“That represents the culminations of many years of development, to get a fully cloud based software-as-a-service offering for the front-office and back-office of councils,” Mr Davison said.

He added Datacom was also aiming to penetrate the corporate sector.

“Keith and the team definitely have the ambition to broaden more into the corporate space with some other services we provide, notably networking and cyber security, but growing to just meeting existing customer demand has taken the priority.”