Atturra lends helping hand to smaller Australian IT services providers

Since its 2015 start as FTS Group, Atturra has expanded to provide end-to-end IT services to 700 clients nationwide including in defence and local government.

Atturra CEO Stephen Kowal sees a future where smaller, homegrown IT services providers can leverage Atturra’s position to gain a seat at the table of government and enterprise clients.

“We kind of see our job in the industry — now we've grown — is to support other organisations and part of our company, SME Gateway, just supports small enterprises working with government,” said Kowal, CEO of the $280 million IT services provider listed on the ASX.

Kowal said Atturra had helped more than 400 smaller IT firms gain lucrative contracts.

“It's a significant volume of money that goes to them. We don't really run that for profit; we run that to develop the industry.

“There's a lot of small players out there [and] I think we need more Atturra-sized IT services providers," Kowal said.

“There's not enough service providers and, as an Australian industry, we want more [sharemarket-] listed IT organisations.”

Although Australia had “great product organisations” such as Atlassian, WiseTech and Technology One, there were too few IT services provider household names, he said.

“I'd like to see … more organisations — be it through combinations or growth —become listed and get a healthier capital market environment for the IT industry.”

He ain’t heavy: Atturra speaks up for sovereign IT services sector

Kowal said the growth of government and enterprise data has fuelled opportunities in analytics and artificial intelligence, especially in education, defence and utilities.

“I'm passionate about Australia having a homegrown, strong services business.

“The government spends billions of dollars on multinationals, which I think can be invested in Australian organisations. So I want to take that share of the pie, I want to keep growing, and I want to be that choice for enterprise-sized organisations to choose an Australian” IT services partner.

“They don't need to go to a global [systems integrator]. We can deliver that here in Australia. We've got the capability, we've got the skills and, quite frankly, I think we've got a better track record.”

Concerns about looming recessionary headwinds may be overblown

Despite economists’ bearish economic forecasts, IT services were poised to sail through with minimal disruption, Kowal predicted.

“I don't see any slowdown at all coming in commercial [enterprise clients],” Kowal said.

“And I think government's going to pick up because it's been delayed over the last year and a half.

“There may be a bit of deal-decision delays in places like Canberra and Victoria but, overall, I think the market's really strong.”

This was, in part, due to the close links between vendors and partners.

“Service providers work so well with the product vendors — and are so close — that I think we can take really good offerings [to market]."

Atturra’s plans for artificial intelligence to build on its data muscle

Generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) such as ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot have reawakened and reinvigorated existing data intelligence programs, the Atturra CEO asserted.

“Being a big data player, things like Gen AI made AI very popular. But, for us, we've been in AI for many years now. And it's just bringing it to the surface.

“I like to think AI is going from the, ‘Don't tell me, show me’ phase.

“And that's really good for us, because we've got practitioners in industry and business skills.

“So, for us, AI is still going to be big, but it's going to get more down to practical projects that deliver real benefits versus what I call the ‘airline magazine’ AI approach, which has been [over] the last year, ‘Tell me, tell me, tell me’.

“Now it's got to go, ‘Show me, show me, show me’.

“And we're positioned to do that practical ‘Show me’ bit.”