Datacom picks up ex-Commander employees, expands into Canberra

Datacom’s new office in Canberra will service its growing base of Government and other ACT-based customers.

Federal Government and ACT organisations will now have local access to Datacom’s complete IT solutions portfolio delivered within a powerful shared-risk partnering model.

The new office is being established under the stewardship of director Dr Allan Hawke, whose distinguished public service career includes appointments as Secretary of Defence, Transport and Regional Services and Veterans' Affairs. Brad Dawson has been appointed as the general manager.

Datacom will initially be supporting the needs of existing clients such as AusIndustry, with whom it has had a decade-long contact centre and support contract. The solutions provider is also helping new clients conclude projects already underway.

According to Michael Browne, CEO of Datacom Australia/Asia, many of the new staff in the Canberra office have come across from Commander.

“We were fortunate enough to be able to hire the people that were looking after Defence and government contracts at Commander,” Browne told CRN. “Commander has shed a lot of staff and we picked nine staff members with experience in the government marketplace.”

Browne said Datacom has been hiring ex-Commander for the past 12 months and they have been integrated into Datacom’s offices all over the country.

“The challenges faced by Commander aren’t the making or choosing of its employees. A lot of the people that have been let go, were good employees with track records. They were just caught up by something that was out of their control. That being the case gave us an opportunity to employee those individuals,” he said.

Datacom currently has around 2,700 staff servicing a broad range of clientele including Microsoft, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Manpower, GE, Medibank Private and Norfolk Group.

Established in Australia in 1992, Datacom’s capabilities include IT infrastructure management and support services, corporate service desks, data centre hosting, application development, outbound marketing programs and contact centre solutions.