Channel won $500m in Canberra during Q4 '19

We trust everyone has settled back into work now after some much-needed R&R over the Christmas holiday break. For some in the channel though, business never slowed down in the fourth quarter of 2019. That’s why CRN’s federal government procurement analysis is back to see who sold the most kit to the government.

This time round, we’ll cover federal contracts awarded from 1 October to 31 December 2019. With 2019 behind us, that means we can start pulling together an analysis of the entirety of the past 12 months. But for now, we’ll stick to Q4 to give those partners and vendors a chance to shine.

As always: the results aren't necessarily definitive as AusTender doesn't publish every contract in a timely manner or use the same business name for each contract.

Nevertheless, we are confident that these figures will provide a useful depiction of the biggest winners in Canberra for Q4 2019. Check out our 2018 analysis if you want to know how we do it.

Let’s start with the top partners, which includes a lot of familiar faces, but a few new ones as well:

No surprises at the top with Q3’s winner Data#3 taking out the top spot once again. Data#3 is the sole Microsoft license reseller to the Australian government, and the government buys a lot of Microsoft licenses! Data#3’s single largest contract in the quarter was an $80 million software deal with the Department of Defence.

While the government’s contracts still list companies now folded in NTT such as Dimension Data and Oakton, it’s been three months since the initial rebrand so we’ve decided to roll them up as well, putting NTT firmly in second place. We’ve also wrapped up DXC and its former UXC subsidiaries into one entity.

NTT’s biggest single win was a $15.8 million contract with the Bureau of Meteorology to supply “electronic hardware and component parts and accessories.”

One of the new names on our list is SME Salsa Digital, which made headlines in July 2018 when it ousted Acquia as the provider of the whole-government content management system, GovCMS. Salsa picked up two multimillion-dollar contracts in October, both with the Department of Finance and vaguely described as “internet services.”

Another new name on the list is Adelaide-based services provider Consunet, which provides IT consulting, software, engineering and services to Defence and other government and commercial customers. Consunet’s big win came in October: a $5.5 million software maintenance and support deal with Defence.

We’re also keeping an eye on contracts won by Forward IT, which was acquired by ASI Solutions in October 2019 for the express purpose of winning more government work. ASI won $301,000 in Canberra business in Q4, compared to Forward IT’s $1.8 million.

Let’s check out the vendors:

No major upsets once again, however we have a new No.1 in Dell, which ousted last quarter’s winner IBM. Dell raked in just shy of $42 million in Q4, its largest contract worth $10.2 million for computer equipment for the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science.

Another new addition to our analysis is Australian software developer Ocean Software, which specialises in enterprise software for military and government organisations. The company picked up two major contracts both with Defence worth $6.3 million and $4 million each.

Last time, we singled out Accenture for winning the biggest overall contract for the quarter: a $529 million deal for national infrastructure services to support My Health Record. This time, the biggest contract was Data#3’s aforementioned $80 million Defence contract. If you’re wondering, Accenture won just $14.6 million in new work in Q4.

Up next are the telcos:

With Telstra being the beast that it is, it’s tricky to nail down the most common contract-type won by Telstra, but we can say that it’s biggest single contract was a $24 million deal with the CSIRO to provide IT or broadcasting kit.

We’ve also got the numbers for the ‘Big Four’ consultants, if that data intrigues you: