New Zealand-based IT solutions provider Intergen opened its first Australian ‘bricks and mortar’ office in Perth last week, which the company’s leadership hopes will grow quickly in tandem with its existing Sydney presence.
New Zealand-based IT solutions provider Intergen opened its first Australian ‘bricks and mortar’ office in Perth last week, which the company’s leadership hopes will grow quickly in tandem with its existing Sydney presence.
Intergen, a Microsoft Gold partner with about 230 staff, already has three permanent people in Perth – two from New Zealand to assist in developing Intergen’s corporate culture – with plans to build to 10 by the year’s end to provide consulting services and business solutions.
Intergen managing director Tony Stewart said the company would target the professional services sector and avoid the mining and resources sectors directly.
“Professional services is an area we have a really good track record with in New Zealand,” he said.
“And we’re looking for the area of the market that’s not necessarily the obvious area (to target).
“In the past I remember people saying in a gold rush, instead of going gold mining you provide the picks and shovels.
“Whereas a lot of organisations are targeting the resource sector directly we will target the service organisations that are providing services to that sector.”
Intergen chief operating officer Simon Bright said building and maintaining relationships was the basis for the whole business.
“Fundamental is our relationship with Microsoft, then secondly those relationships we build either with third party suppliers and other partners in the marketplace,” Mr Bright said.
“We do have a reputation of being a bit of a friendly player and we want to maintain that reputation.”
So sociable was Intergen that Mr Bright went out to dinner with some key competitors last week to discuss future plans.
“We’re pretty open about the fact that we’re trying to find the right space in the marketplace,” he said.
“So it’s trying to co-habit rather than finding ourselves directly competing.
“Logically we can’t compete against established players in an industry they’re very strong in.
“So it’s quite easy for me to front up to competition and have that conversation and that happened a couple of times.”
Mr Stewart highlighted the company’s accelerated growth in recent years, with annual turnover surpassing $NZ30 million ($24.2 million), which he hoped to build further in WA.
“From 2001 through to 2009 financial year our average growth was 33 per cent,” Mr Stewart said.
“It slowed down last year to around 10 per cent growth but we’re really looking now to accelerate that to back up to where it was before.
“It’s really about wanting a footprint in Australia and wanting to grow in Australia and we saw WA as being a really good opportunity to do that.
“From what we can see it’s not super well-serviced and we see a lot of organisations fighting over it in Sydney.
“If the Aussies are all going to focus on the east coast then it leaves it to the Kiwis to focus over here.”
Intergen was founded in March 1995 under the name Glazier Systems before being sold during the dot.com boom to listed company Advantage Group.
It was then bought back by the original Glazier management in 2001 and renamed. The company has had one permanent employee in Sydney since 2005 and no formal office as yet.
