Data#3, Fujitsu, NTT named biggest govt winners of 2019

Australia's Federal Government always spends bucketloads on IT and plenty of it goes to channel companies.

Which is why CRN has again, for a second year, we’ve sifted through the contract records for IT projects in order to assess just what Canberra spent, and with whom.

Our analysis spans contract notices published on the AusTender website from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2019 across four categories: information technology broadcasting and telecommunications; domestic appliances and supplies and consumer electronic products; electronic components and supplies; and engineering and research and technology-based services.

Our standard disclaimer: Given the nature of how contracts are publicised on the AusTender website, our results aren’t necessarily definitive. However, CRN is confident that these figures will provide a useful depiction of the biggest winners in Canberra for 2019. You can check out our 2018 analysis here, or the Q4 analysis here.

So let’s get to it, starting with partners:

The total value of deals awarded to the 20 companies listed above is $1.449 billion. 

Last year’s winner Data#3 returns to the top spot, this time raking in a whopping $462 million in contract wins. The Brisbane-headquartered company earns a hefty slice of its Canberra spend from its status as the sole Microsoft license supplier to the government, which brought about a $30.7 million Microsoft volume source agreement with the ATO in July 2019. The company also landed a $21.8 million network hardware supply deal for the Australian Federal Police.

The first quarter’s two big winners, Kinetic IT and Fujitsu, returned in second and fourth place respectively, both benefiting from their wins with the Department of Defence.

Defence handed out three end-user support contracts in January 2019 – a $99.2 million national deskside support services contract won by Fujitsu, and a pair of ICT service desk and service integration services deals worth a combined $91.4 million won by Kinetic IT.

We previously listed NTT and Dimension Data as separate companies as the two didn’t complete their merge until October 2019. But now as one unit, the new-look NTT, which also includes contracts won by Oakton, earned the No.3 spot with $158 million in contracts. NTT’s biggest win was a $15.8 million hardware deal with the Bureau of Meteorology.

We’ve been keeping an eye on Canberra-based MSP Forward IT since it was acquired by ASI Solutions in October 2019 for the express purpose of winning more government work. The numbers suggest ASI was right on the money, with Forward IT raking in $18 million in wins. By comparison, ASI won $1.3 million in contracts.

DWS and Projects Assured offer a similar story. The IT body-shopper bought Projects Assured in June 2018 for $43 million, again in an effort to lure over more Canberra work. While the two companies have been one for some time now, AusTender shows us that Projects Assured won the bulk of government spend with $16.5 million in deals, compared to DWS’s $9.3 million.

Now to the vendors:

Vendor contracts from the top twenty totaled $713 million, less than half of the sum awarded to channel players.

Yay! The system works!

Last year’s clear winner IBM lost its throne to Dell, which won $125 million if you combine its contract wins with EMC (AusTender doesn’t, but CRN does). Dell’s biggest deal was worth $5.8 million for supplying software licenses to the AFP.

IBM still had an impressive year with $65.8 million in new contract awards, but it was always going to be an impossibility to produce the same result as 2018 given Big Blue had picked up a $1 billion whole-of-government supply deal.

Meanwhile Oracle took the No.2 spot in 2019, its largest deal worth $13.4 million for software licenses for the Australian Digital Health Agency.

CRN thinks it's worth mentioning the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA), the government department established to oversee digital transformation initiatives by other departments. Some contracts, including some Microsoft volume sourcing arrangements, are processed through the DTA, though it is difficult to discern which contracts are included and which aren’t. For that reason, and as a matter of record, AusTender recorded $42.4 million in contracts going through the DTA.

Now, for all you telco-heads out there:

Telstra retained its top spot, raking in tens of millions from Defence from contracts related to its Terrestrial Communications Services deal inked in 2012. Optus won its own fair share of work from Optus too, in particular a $14.5 million contract for unnamed ICT services.

And finally, the consultants. Typically, we've only included the 'Big Four' (Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PWC). However this time we're mentioning Accenture to recognise its $1 billion deal to replatform the the My Health Record system.

That deal brought to total spent on IT with the big four to $1.48 billion, which surely serves as a lesson about the importance of selling services!

If you've think we missed a deal, or your big win in Canberra, let us know by emailing crneditors@techpartner.news.