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Contents 
Introduction
Profitability plus
Improving on multinationals
Niche skills on tap
The local touch
In defence of multinationals
Executive summary |
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"In our mind this company has never really changed from being an Australian company to being a multinational."
So says David D'Aprano, national solutions and services director at Dimension Data, the company that started life as local services outfit Com Tech.
Is the claim credible?
D'Aprano believes it is because while Dimension Data is a global company, the local outfits' decision-making processes are still entirely local and it relies only on skills it has within Australia.
"One of the problems we see with global companies is that a lot of their capability is not local," he says. "We made a decision that our support, for example, would be local, because our biggest customers wanted to talk to Australians who understood the environment so that if they had an issue that fell between time zones they would not be shunted to a call centre in Paris because the guys in the USA had all gone home."
This structure also allows the company to add expertise and services to meet local needs. "If we decide we have a requirement for a service in Australia, we will look at whether the group has built the service anywhere else in the world. If there's a methodology we will use it to bring that service to Australia."
If the group has no expertise, the company's local board can make an independent decision to develop the service locally.
"You must be able to adapt your business to the local clientele," D'Aprano says. "We are a fully funded sub and we make out own P&L decisions. That to me is the crunch."
Cios shift to IT services in 2005: Gartner
Australian CIOs will be shifting their focus in 2005 from reducing company costs to improving business processes, according to analyst Bob Hayward from analyst firm Gartner Group.
Speaking at an Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) business briefing, Hayward said that Gartner's research indicates CIOs are "leading a transformation from enablement to contribution."
Over the past three years, the primary agenda for most CIOs has been on cost reduction. However, Hayward says Gartner surveys indicate a shift toward finding "high-quality IT services in line with business cost expectations, increasing the quality and use of intelligence in processes, products and services, and improving, integrating and innovating business processes."
Hayward explains that rather than concentrating on cost reductions, Gartner surveys are showing that the primary priority for CIOs this year will be "delivering projects that enable business growth, followed by linking business and IT strategies".
Gartner's research goes on to say that IT services will continue to dominate in 2005, with an estimated AU$17.7 billion expected to be spent in Australia in 2005 -- a 9.4 percent increase on 2004. The telecommunications segment, Hayward says, will enjoy a predicted growth of 12.9 percent in 2005, with spending increased to an estimated AU$13.9 billion.
