Nomura Research Institute’s (NRI) move to make Planit a business line within its Australia and New Zealand arm reflects the company’s strategy of becoming a “globally connected but locally embedded” IT services company.

Founded and based in Sydney, Planit provides software testing solutions to help organisations improve application security and performance and was originally acquired by NRI in 2021.

NRI recently announced that Planit would become a dedicated business line within its ANZ arm - as opposed to a subsidiary business of the company - that will focus on delivering engineering services to clients.

NRI ANZ chief executive Kaylene O'Brien said feedback from clients was that they were looking for partners who had that combination of a strong global presence with an experienced local team.

“Clients want to know that you've got a local presence, local leadership, a clear escalation path and they want to see that we can bring the latest global thinking and that we can proactively improve the service levels," she told techpartner.news.

"That has been a trend over the years, but it's become more intense."

Not only does Planit provide the local presence in the Australian market that O’Brien described as “very attractive”, but it also has a strong global presence.

“This is a pretty unique situation - the scale of Planit, one of the world's largest specialist quality engineering testing businesses that has such a strong presence in Australia and New Zealand, integrating with an end to end solution provider is a really big step in this market, and it puts us in a very unique position,” she explained.

O’Brien said that the Planit acquisition not only fits well with that aspect of the company’s growth strategy, but it also deepens its technical capabilities.

“The key benefit from the integration is for our clients in terms of being able to bring a breadth of services," she said.

"The research that we have shows that clients really value technical depth in their strategic partners, but they also want to know that we can bring an integrated service when it's needed, and we're seeing more of that demand for end to end service."

Talent attraction and retention was another key concern that O’Brien covered, saying that the Planit acquisition was being welcomed by staff for the career potential.

“It creates a lot more opportunity for career mobility and advancement, so the news to our staff across both organisations has been very well accepted, with the benefits clear to them,” she said.

O’Brien also mentioned talent attraction in relation to the company’s strategy of investing in a  local presence for key markets.

“A really important part of the strategy to grow NRI in Australia and New Zealand is about the cultural and leadership change," she told techpartner.news.

"The people that recently joined my exec team have extensive experience in the industry. They've built trusted, long term client relationships, and they're inspiring leaders who clients and our team want to work with."

She added that high talent leaders attract better talent, which was vital as NRI is “fundamentally a people business”.

O’Brien said that the next six months will be focused on communicating to clients the value of the integration of Planit and NRI.

“We (will) bring more of that testing and quality engineering culture and mindset to all of our clients, and we’ll bring more of the NRI services to our current Planit clients," she said.

"The big thing that I'm looking forward to in the next six months is demonstrating to our clients the value of the integrated offer between NRI and Planit."