The Group profit before tax for the year is at $35.3 million, below the previous year’s unusually high $64.7 million, the company says in a statement.
During the year, staff numbers increased by 9 per cent to 4,095; with 2,655 in New Zealand, 1,302 in Australia and 138 in Asia.
“This is a sound result for Datacom,” says Craig Boyce, Datacom Group chairman. “The executive team is delivering on a progressive and sustainable business strategy and we are pleased with the solid overall performance and strong revenue growth, which maintains the 10 year compound annual growth rate for revenue at 11.2 per cent.”
Jonathan Ladd, Datacom Group CEO says, “The increases in revenue and trading profit alongside our continuing investment of $11.3 million operating expenditure and $30 million capital expenditure reflects the Group’s balanced push for business growth”.
To continue to grow, Datacom is focused on leading the IT services evolution by delivering business-relevant outcomes to our customers in a highly flexible and rapid fashion.
The 2013 to 2014 period profit was boosted by the $25 million divestment of the Group’s Asia contact centre business in April 2013. In 2014 to 2015, it invested $11.3 million in operational expenditure, including the evolution of new products and services, predominantly in intellectual property and vertical markets specialisation.
Digital, mobile and analytics
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The company reports its New Zealand business has increased its revenue year on year with an increase of 9.2 per cent continuing a decade plus of consistent growth, showing notable uplift in its regional centres..
Notable projects include the successful delivery of data centre relocations and outsourced data centre network and systems management for Fonterra and the transition to full outsourcing and service aggregation for the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
Early this year, IDC’s market share analysis indicate inclusive of business consultancy services, in New Zealand.
Datacom says its business in Australia increased revenues by 6 per cent with multiple new contracts signings.
A highlight was Datacom being awarded the contract to supply ICT systems and support services to the Australian Government Department of Health, with an initial five-year contract value of A$242 million. This contract is a departure from traditional IT services outsourcing with a structure to provide an outcomes-based fully managed service, with consumption-based pricing, and a strong focus on service delivery.
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“This contract reflects the changing way these services are required to be delivered to customers and is a positive sign that our focus on developing highly flexible ‘As a Service’ models is the right direction for customers,” says Ladd.
Growth areas in the software business include multiple projects in digital innovation and the scaling of practices in mobility and data and analytics.
Datacom’s New Zealand and Australia-wide data centre network continues its profitable trajectory as the business adapts to the uptake of public cloud, the company states.
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Datacom’s data centre operations was recognised with the New Zealand Orbit and Kapua data centres being rated by the Uptime Institute (UTI) as among the very best run data centres in the world. Both facilities were awarded the Management and Operational Stamp of Approval from the UTI, the first and to date only data centres in Australasia to have received these stamps of approval.
Datacom says another market recognition was achieved when the company was named the first Australasian partner to pass Amazon Web Services’ Managed Services Partner audit. This validates Datacom’s ability to broaden its stable of AWS solutions across Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and the Philippines.
This comes alongside the achievement of a world first when earlier in the year Datacom delivered the largest global production SAP migration to the Microsoft Azure Cloud platform for New Zealand company Zespri.
Datacom is making significant investment in work relating to the reinvention of IT service models, enhanced automation and standardisation of repeatable IT process to meet flexible service delivery needs across the hybrid environment of public and private cloud and on-premises systems. This work is being matched by investment in the highest tier of cybersecurity and risk and data management practices.
“To continue to grow, Datacom is focused on leading the IT services evolution by delivering business-relevant outcomes to our customers in a highly flexible and rapid fashion,” says Ladd.
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The software development business maintained its position as the largest provider of custom software development in New Zealand, and during the year won and delivered on a large number of projects.
Together with delivery of custom software projects to the public sector, growth areas in the software business include multiple projects in digital innovation and the scaling of practices in mobility and data and analytics.
A significant portion of the Group’s investment has been concentrated in Datacom Solutions, which is focused on providing sector-leading IT products and services to the payroll, local government, education and healthcare sectors in Australia and New Zealand.
Under the Datacom Solutions banner, Datacom made an equity investment in Canberra-based health informatics company, SmartWard Holding, and signed an exclusive licence to sell, install and support the system across Australasia.
The New Zealand payroll business completed an outstanding year in significantly lifting revenue, profits and payee numbers while investing heavily in new product development and establishing an operation in Australia selling the DataPay products.
The group also established a support team across Australia and New Zealand to support its customers in the local governments.
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