Going Public

Zensar has built up success in government from its Australian office, which only opened in 1998. “It’s been quite successful,” he says.

Mathur says .NET and J2EE solutions are proving popular, as are migrations from legacy systems such as COBOL.

Generally, Zensar does application work -- developing and supporting applications -- for specific projects. System integrator Fujitsu helps with its software consulting framework that can be carried forward from deal to deal.

Other companies -- whether software, hardware or services-based -- are heartened by current conditions and are seeking to do more work with government.

Charles Assaf, managing director at telecommunications integrator Nexon Asia- Pacific, says Nexon is expanding nationally with an eye to government departments in particular. “Government departments are looking for top technical people and it is more than doable with our technical team,” he says.

Nexon has just bought $150 million telecommunications group Heyday, partly for the boost it can bring to Nexon’s technical staff skill set, he says.
 
Longer term, Nexon expects telecommunications managed services to give it that edge in public sector agency deals, Assaf suggests.
 
David Watt, a government business executive at IBM Global Services, says IBM also works with resellers or sub-contractors much of the time. “And there are sometimes sub-contractors to our business partners as well,” he says. Partners can be large or small. “We have a fairly large system integrator working on a project,” Watt adds.
 
“But it’s like winning business from any organisation. You’ve got to understand their needs. You’ve got to provide value for money. You’ve got to understand who their clients are and what their clients want as well.”
 
Meanwhile, the future could see more global opportunities for government sales. Recent Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) -- such as the one signed recently with the US -- are in theory reciprocal. Depending on how the FTA plays out in practice, resellers may well benefit.
 
WDG’s Arrigo says she has not seen any opportunities flowing down from the US FTA so far. However, the company will watch with interest, because it is already “aggressively” targeting South-East Asia and working with Austrade and other export bodies to figure out ways to market overseas.
 
“I actually think Australia would be a leader in that,” Arrigo says. “Already, in Victoria we see they are becoming a lot more open to patent intellectual property. I don’t know about other states.”
 
There is a down side, too. Arrigo says issues about ownership of intellectual property can mar a deal. Intellectual property ownership can be “a real issue” in deals overseas, whether with governments or otherwise, she says.
 
But Australian companies can still stand to gain. Solutions developed for the Victorian Government can then be taken overseas. “That’s a significant opportunity for our guys long term,” Arrigo says.
 
EDC’s Smith says the FTA proved a major glitch for government procurement, creating issues for agencies’ decision-making on supply. “The agencies were releasing large numbers of panel contracts to try and get around some of the issues presented,” he says.
 
“My understanding of the FTA in panel contracts, for instance, is that basically a requirement for work to be tendered, yet government agencies have to do these things quickly sometimes,” Smith says.
 
‘They had to reorganise themselves very quickly,’ he says.
 
Nineteenth century New York politician George van Valkenberg said humans exist to create problems. What government and bureaucrats tend to do is magnify normal human problems by 100. IT contracts with government -- whether state or federal -- must try to solve this phenomenon. The results, all agree, are worth the effort.