SMS Management reports strong growth

IT management and services company SMS Management has reported strong revenue and earnings growth for the full year to 30 June 2011.

The company reported revenue of $306.1 million up 23.6% year on year, driven by a broader service offering, expansion into Asia and greater cross selling between its divisions. The result comes despite skills shortages and cost pressures, the company said.

Total full time equivalent staff grew some 22% and exceeded 1700 as at 30 June 2011. The growth was the product of a number of staff attraction, retention and development initiatives against a background of competition for skilled resources, according to SMS Management.

In an ASX release, the company said it had experienced health demand for its services in industries such as financial services, resources and infrastructure, transport and utilities. It had also introduced an infrastructure consulting and managed service practice (IC&MS).

According to the company, it has also acquired two businesses during the financial year. The first, Renewtek, offers IBM products, business process management and Agile development services. The second, Microgenx, offers Microsoft SharePoint implementation and .Net development services.

SMS chief executive, Tom Stianos, said that the Renewtek acquisition, in particular, had not performed as expected during the year.

“While the Renewtek acquisition has not delivered the desired results as early as we expected, we are now seeing increased demand for their services and remain confident of a profitable contribution from this business in 2012,” he said.

Commenting on future opportunities the company said it would seek to build upon its IT consulting and development and integration strengths through moving into business process outsourcing — a market estimated to be worth $2.6 billion in Australia — and application managed services — estimated at $3.7 billion.

The company was also seeking to gain a slice of the 3.3 billion infrastructure managed services market via a new practice launched in financial year 2012.