On the back of continued demand for cloud infrastructure and digital projects, Datacom has reported strong profit and revenue growth for the 2021 financial year.
However, going forward the company cited low availability of skilled tech talent in the ANZ region as a cause of concern. Net profit after tax was $35 million for the fical, almost double when compared to $19 million in FY2020, according to a report in CRN Australia.
The company clocked revenues at $1.41 billion for the year ended 31 March 2021, up from $1.34 billion the previous year. Full-year operating cash flow came in at $156 million.
“After a year of challenges for our countries and communities, it has never been more important for us to ensure the wellbeing of our people, and help our customers stay connected and operational,” Datacom Group chief executive Greg Davidson said. “We’ve learned a lot from our response to COVID-19 and the significant change in the way we work, support our customers and the meaningful impact we can have on the organisations we work with.
“We saw an immediate acceleration in the demand for cloud infrastructure, for digital projects that would help businesses continue trading and enable local authorities and government agencies to increase their connection and services to citizens.” Datacom attributed its growth to organisations across Australia and New Zealand continuing to move to hybrid clouds.
Demand for business platforms also continued increasing as more customers sought to keep operational during lockdowns, including Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 and other platforms. Fidelity Life, a major New Zealand insurance company ran a whole-of-business transformation project that required a significant shift in people’s mindsets.
The data of thousands of Fidelity Life customers is now securely captured in Microsoft’s Dynamics 365, and with a new cloud platform the company is also able to scale up capacity, increase efficiency on what could have taken months on their legacy systems and use collaboration tools to help Fidelity Life’s people work remotely. Datacom Connect also saw short-term expansion to support Australia’s Federal Government COVID-19 response, providing tele-health frontline essential services.
The business had been recruiting hundreds of people since last year, working with airline industry partners who were impacted, to provide employees who had been stood down with short-term work during COVID-19 lockdowns. Additionally, Datacom saw strong growth in local government management software, cybersecurity, payroll and data centres.
Looking ahead, Datacom said that it will continue to invest in reskilling the workforce in both Australia and New Zealand. “To respond to the challenges faced in hiring technology talent on both sides of the Tasman, we are heavily prioritising and investing in our own people to reskill and upskill, including our Transform programme,” Davidson said.
“We are working with partners in the education field to increase the rates of training for key areas, such as cybersecurity, and with a range of new partners [in New Zealand] to develop our talent, but all these things take time to deliver results so it’s going to be a key challenge we all face in FY22.”
