Logica has upped its staff count in Canberra by 26 as it seeks to both service and grow its base of Australian public sector customers.
The new staff – predominantly technical roles such as network and infrastructure specialist, architects and analysts – will be headed up by Paul Sargeant who has been promoted within Logica to Industry Director for Government and Transport.
According to Sargeant, the new staff mark a shift in Logica’s business to include a greater focus on the government sector as a major growth opportunity for the ICT services company.
“Logica has traditionally had its largest market in energy and utilities,” he said. “As we continue to grow in advance of the overall IT Services market, we will focus on our three core markets of energy and utilities, transport and logistics, and government.
“We have great clients in all three markets and see opportunities across them all. Given that we have a dominant position in [energy and utilities], the biggest growth opportunities are in Government for Logica in Australia.”
In line with this Logica had also created a dedicated business development team based in Canberra to grow Logica’s business in the sector.
In the last year Logica has picked up several government contracts including CrimTrac, National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), and Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).
Sargeant said Logica was seeing demand within the public sector for services such as ICT outsourcing, ICT infrastructure projects such as advanced networks and virtualisation, and ‘informed government’ related work - records, document and case management, and storage management.
Services around secure government - compliance, threat management, secure infrastructure, secure networks and secure gateways - asset management including geospatial and mobility applications, ICT consolidation, and the establishment of shared services environments were also in demand.
While much has been written on the impact of the Gershon Review on the public sector, Sargeant said much of this impact was yet to be seen in demand for ICT services to support the implementation of the Review's recommendations.
"The Gershon report is gathering momentum within the public sector," he said. "We are seeing the sector making a gradual move towards selective outsourcing ICT projects, however expect this likely to increase as more government departments get closer to achieving targets set out in the Gershon review."