Dimension Data’s growth plan makes international waves

INFORMATION technology (IT) firm Dimension Data was on track to reach $8 billion (R96.2bn) in revenue this year, maintaining double digit growth led by its push into data centres, the company’s chief executive said on Friday.

Dimension Data aimed to quadruple its global data centre management business to generate $4bn in revenue per annum, Brett Dawson said, as it sought to steal market share from top-ranked competitors like IBM and Hewlett Packard. A unit of Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, Dimension Data has also set a target of doubling its turnover to $12bn by 2018.

“We just finished our first quarter and we’ve grown 17 percent and this year we are trying to get to $8bn turnover and we are well on track to do that,” Brett Dawson told the Reuters Africa Investment Summit. “Our data centre business has to grow at around 30 percent to 40 percent and we have been growing at that rate.”

At the moment, Dawson said, clients were looking to either consolidate data centres or make less use of them, while power constraints and new cloud computing technology were helping change the way businesses operated.

This has enabled Dimension Data, a relative newcomer to data centres, to push new ideas and models for IT as a service. Besides managing data centres, located in all major regions worldwide, Dimension Data has expanded its IT outsourcing and security services in the communication and networking sectors.

Last year the firm spent an undisclosed sum buying USbased cloud computing company Nexus and NextiraOne, which designs and maintains business software throughout Europe, allowing the company to expand significantly in those two key markets.

It was now looking at acquisitions to bolster its skills base, Dawson said, such as those needed to combat hacking.

He said there was still no final decision on a second part to the NextiraOne transaction, which would open up opportunities in France and Italy and potentially bring in additional revenues of 400 million (R5.2bn).

“We are committed to the deal on condition that they hit certain targets, so we have to wait and see if that transpires,” he said of a decision expected around June. – Reuters