"I’ve never seen such a groundswell of support for a cause"

“The growth is now to a point where we've proven beyond all reasonable doubt that this is not a flash in the pan,” Phillip Jenkinson, CEO of Brisbane cybersecurity firm Baidam Solutions, told CRN Australia recently.

Founded in 2018 by Jenkinson and Group CEO Jack Reis – a Badulaig man with heritage stemming from Badu Island in the Torres Strait – Baidam grew 310 per cent year-on-year in the past two financial years, Jenkinson said.

He said that the company's revenue in its most recent quarter was up on the firm's full year results for the previous year.

The Indigenous-owned firm has achieved this while working to “bridge the gap” of First Nations representation in its industry, contributing 52 per cent of its gross profit to the cause.

Indigenous business in Australia is growing rapidly, according to a 2023 research report from Indigenous business database Supply Nation.

Contracts with Indigenous suppliers registered with Supply Nation increased to $4.1 billion in the 2022-2023 financial year. That includes contracts for everything from cultural, educational and health services to office supplies and IT.

“I’ve never seen such a groundswell of support for a cause,” Jenkinson said. "The way I know that's sort of hitting on to other people's radars is that the larger end of town is reaching out to Jack and I saying, ‘could we partner on this whole of government deal worth $100 million.”

“It can be measured very easily by the number of partnering engagements that Baidam is doing with larger global systems integrators that are clearly are not set up to attack this problem of social give back.”

"Another contributing factor to our success is absolutely our staff. They are committed and passionate about enabling others and always looking for ways to help.”

In January 2024, the business advertised positions in NSW and Victoria, and it recently recruited a staff member in Western Australia.

In 2024, Jenkinson expects that he and Reis will speak overseas about this “little business in Queensland that's built the world's first [Indigenous-owned and operated SOC],” which launched in May last year.

“That applicability is very relevant in Canada and in America and New Zealand, where we've got strong contingents of first peoples and we're bringing together a blueprint…this actually worked, it's independent, it's sustainable, it's profitable,” Jenkinson said.

Social fuel

Corporate social responsibility has fuelled Baidam Solutions’ growth, Jenkinson said.

It “wasn’t being valued by the customer footprint say 10 years ago” but “now is absolutely part of their triple bottom line accounting practices and recording this to the shareholders,” he said.

“I think our customers are appreciative of the fact that there is a sovereign, aggressive, agile reseller that is caring about people other than themselves and we are being inclusive and diverse of the way that we go around sort some of these cultural discussions, where we're bringing the profit back into Australia.”

“The customer is not necessarily always driven by price.” - Phillip Jenkinson, Baidam Solutions

Customers are also looking to avoid tokenism, in Jenkinson’s experience.

“The customer is now starting to understand that there are many ways around this ticking the box tokenism…and the customer is driving the response from the bigger end of town to speak to us or speak to Indigenous business in general,” he said.

Jenkinson pointed to Queensland Health’s 2019 whole-of-department network and cybersecurity tender, which he said asked respondents if they were a First Nations businesses or would be working with one.

“The lessons learned by Jack and I very early on was that certainly for those organisations that weren't First Nations-owned…there was a lot of ‘hey, we want to wrap our arms around you, but we don't actually want you to do anything; we want to get the weighting for the tender, but we're not actually going to sacrifice any positive outcome for Baidam to do anything,’” he said.

“We've learned those lessons and so in many respects we're battle hardened, we’re not battle shy.”

The infinite game

Baidam Solutions plays an “infinite game,” Reis said.

“Our goal is to affect generational change, so long after I'm here…there will be some sort of legacy that we look to leave behind that will help impact people, communities and industry,” he said, referring to the STEM scholarships Baidam Solutions has rolled out at Australian universities.

In 2023, Baidam Solutions partnered with Western Australia’s Curtin university on a scholarship for First Nations students, having previously done the same with the University of Queensland and the Australian National University.

It plans to set up more scholarships and is in conversations with Sydney-based universities.

“If we were in this just to make money, then we would be a poor business.” - Jack Reis, Baidam Solutions

“We are driven by our impacts, we are driven by our culture – not just First Nations and veterans and the cause and mission we stand for, but our business culture as well,” Reis said.

“If you just pause for a second and just think about the enormity of these scholarships in perpetuity…what that means is that when…Jack and Pip…are nothing but dust in the wind, somebody year after year after year will receive the Baidam Solutions scholarship.”

“Now we can talk about intergenerational wealth and…home ownership for First Nations people and many other impacts along the way.”