SMS blows off downturn and starts hiring big time

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 02 June 2009 17:03

IT Industry - Market

For Australia's largest listed ICT services provider, SMS Management & Technology, the downturn is already well and truly over. At least that would appear to be the case judging by the company's hiring intentions.

At its height, during the good times before the global financial crisis hit after mid 2008, SMS had 1400 consulting staff working feverishly on a multitude of technology projects spanning the financial services industry, the federal and state government sectors, utilities and elsewhere.

Now the SMS, down to 1250 staff after a forced cull and hiring freeze, is finding itself short of the necessary human resources to meet a steadily growing order book of projects.

According to SMS CEO Tom Stianos, SMS is looking to hire at least 80 staff and possibly more across Melbourne, Sydney and other major capitals.

"We took precautionary measures from October last year to curtail recruitment and that has on one hand served us well in terms of avoiding any mass redundancies," Mr Stianos told iTWire.

"However, the sales just keep trickling in. The $2 million to $5 million jobs are still flowing.

"Financial services, which you thought would have been affected by the global financial crisis is actually tracking quite well.

"We're doing good work with ANZ (Bank). NAB slowed for a bit but is now increasing its demand for our services. Suncorp has been going through all sorts of restructuring but we've retained our engagement with them in a number of projects and that relationship is quite strong.

"Smaller banks such as Bendigo and so on are kicking off projects so the sector is steady and growing progressively and it hasn't shrunk."

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