IBM, Fujitsu, Data#3 among the biggest government IT suppliers

IBM, Fujitsu, Data#3 and eight other IT and telco companies were the biggest recipients of IT and telco contracts from the Australian government, according to a report from the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO).

In the department’s latest Australian Government Procurement Contract Report, an estimated $35.9 billion was spent on IT, engineering and research services and telecommunications from 2012-13 to 2016-17.

The IT category was the fourth largest behind commercial, military and private vehicles.

IBM earned $2.1 billion in contracts within that time frame.

Fujitsu and Abacus Innovations — the result of the Lockheed-Leidos IT services merger — raked in $961 million and $894 million, respectively.

Other IT companies named in the category were Data#3, Telstra, HP, Oracle, Accenture, Datacom Systems, SAP Australia and Optus, with contracts ranging from $345 million to $883 million.

While IBM received the most amount of money, it had significantly fewer deals with 692, compared with the 1689 agreements with Data#3 and 1517 IT contracts from HP.

In the 2016-17 financial year alone, the category saw $5.7 billion in government contracts, which was $1.47 billion less than the year before.

A large chunk of IT procurement money went to computer services — which may include the procurement of temporary IT support workers — IT components, communications devices, and software.

The biggest portion of spend wasn't actually properly categorised by agencies in AusTender, according to a report from iTnews. The “other” category means anything within IT, telco, and engineering.

“The issue of inaccurate contract reporting more broadly has been on the ANAO's watchlist for a while now,” the iTnews report said.

“Its most recent audit found that only 41 of 155 contracts examined correctly reported all details.”

The Department of Human Services spent the most proportionally on IT during the period, with 44 percent being spent on the category.

It was followed by Finance at 37 percent of total procurement spend, and the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) at 34 percent.

However the most dollars spent on IT was from the Department of Defence, spending more than $15 billion within the period.

DHS was a distant second with a $3.2 billion spend.