Dimension Data cuts 33 Aussies

IT services giant Dimension Data has confirmed it retrenched 33 staff yesterday.

DiData CEO: Steve Nola
(Credit: DiData)

"Taking the decision to retrench staff was a difficult one, and we have lost some talented people from our business," DiData's Australian regional CEO Nola told ZDNet.com.au today.

"However, in assessing our capacity to invest in future growth opportunities for Dimension Data — most notably in IT services — we were required to make some cost cuts in specific operational areas."

Nola said the cuts were necessary to support the company's planned investment in managed IT services, which he said was a growth opportunity. "Even in times like this, when clients are cost-conscious, we're getting a fair amount of enquiries," he said.

DiData, which employs over 1,000 staff in Australia, as at September last year secured revenues of US$974 million wihin Australia, according to Nola.

For competitive reasons, Nola declined to say from which divisions the cuts had been made, and denied claims by sources that the deepest cuts were made to the arm that supports Microsoft Sharepoint projects. "There were a very small number of people out of that business," he said. "We see Sharepoint as a strategic product for us."

Datacentre and call centre staff were also amongst those cut, according to a ZDNet.com.au source, however Nola declined to confirm or deny this. He also declined to confirm whether key sales staff had recently quit.

Until yesterday DiData had maintained the position it was on the hunt for IT talent and was not known to have made redundancies.

The company has now joined the ranks of several other IT services firms within Australia that have laid off staff, including Optus-owned Alphawest, Oakton, UXC, HP/EDS and Optus.

Despite acknowledging customers would be tighter with investments in technology as a result of the economic downturn, Nola said DiData's ongoing revenues from managed services was still healthy and noted it had maintained a spot on the Australian Taxation Office's $55 million a year managed network services bid currently up for grabs.