Datacom Group grew its Australian Systems business by six percent in the 2015 financial year.
Overall, the New Zealand-headquartered group saw revenue rise by 6.3 percent to NZ$937 million (A$842 million) for 2014-15, up from NZ$881 million the year before.
The Australian operation saw “healthy business growth", though Datacom did not provide specific dollar figures around revenue or profits. As a private company, Datacom is not required publicly publish its full financials.
As an entire group, Datacom's profit after tax was cut in half, down to NZ$24.3 million, down from NZ$51.4 million the year before. The prior year’s result was boosted by profit from the NZ$25 million divestment of Datacom’s Asia contact centre business in 2013.
The Datacom story has been one of long-term growth, albeit with mixed results for Australia and Asia during 2013-14. That year, Datacom reported that while New Zealand profits had risen, profit from Datacom Australia and South East Asia had fallen, with revenue down due in part to a “depressed IT project spend” in Australia.
The same period during 2013-14, the Australian Systems division faced a “challenging year”, blamed in part on a dip in the Australian economy and customer indecision around election time. The project services business suffered at the time as a result, but Datacom’s Australian third party hardware resale business grew during 2013-14, as did the Datacom Connect business.
More recently in March, Datacom Australia lost its new chief executive Theresa Eyssens, who joined after a eight month-long search then left after only six months in the job. Datacom is yet to announce a replacement.
However, this week’s 2014-15 financial results announcementwas almost entirely free of negative commentary, instead highlighting wins like Datacom’s five-year, $242 million contract supplying ICT and support services to the Australian Government Department of Health.
The company also pointed to the expansion of its software and integration practice in Victoria, which has seen new customers including from the insurance, state emergency services, logistics and infrastructure sectors. Datacom Connect added more work for the Australian Tax Office (ATO) and federal and state government.
Datacom Solutions also invested in Canberra-based health software vendor SmartWard in September last year.
Datacom Group now reports 4,095 staff, with 2,655 in New Zealand, 1,302 in Australia and 138 in Asia.
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