Invercargill IT firm expands
Focus Technology Group has bought Clive Wilson Group’s business computing division to add to its expanding interests throughout the South Island and overseas.
Founder and chief executive Rod Sinclair said the Invercargillbased IT and software company now employed 52 people across four businesses based in Invercargill, Gore, Christchurch and Queenstown.
Focus bought the division on June 2 and two Clive Wilson employees had come across to its Spey St base. City-based Hunt Computers had taken over Clive Wilson’s home computing work, Sinclair said.
‘‘Our focus is supporting business networks and infrastructure. We do that throughout all these regions.’’
They were also involved software development, he said.
Focus had grown throughout the past two decades through the IT boom but Sinclair said like a lot of technology ‘‘the mystique’s gone out of it’’ meaning their core business, while still involving IT support, had diversified into software
in consultancy, including based solutions.
The IT business had changed significantly during the past decade as technology made hardware and software more user-friendly. Computer and associated hardware, or ‘‘tin’’ sales, as they referred to it in the industry, peaked in about 2005. Computers lasted longer now, with companies tending to change hardware every five years or so, whereas it was more like every three years previously, Sinclair said.
Focus was busy in Christchurch and had a lot of clients in Australia. While it did not service
cloud- the dairy industry directly, a lot of companies it serviced did, so he said he would be watching for the ripple effect of lower dairy payouts.
Sinclair is the founder of the company and the majority shareholder of the four shareholders involved.
Clive Wilson Group managing director Alan Wilson said the company would be concentrating more on its core business of switchboard manufacturing and electrical wholesaling.
‘‘We’re flat out. We’re struggling to keep up at the moment, which is good,’’ he said.