Menu
Datacom sells Asian contact centre business for $A20 million

Datacom sells Asian contact centre business for $A20 million

US firm Convergys has signed a definitive agreement to buy the contact centres and 850 staff

Datacom Group will net $A20 million from the sale of its contact centre operations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Manila, Philippines.

The centres and 850 staff members will pass to Cincinnati headquarted business process outsourcer (BPO) Convergys by the end of April this year. Datacom ran the contact centres since 1995.

Datacom Group CEO Jonathan Ladd told Computerworld Australia that the Asian contact centres had reached a “tipping point”.

“In Asia, it’s a global game and Convergys is one of the giants with 177,000 people. To compete, we would have needed to employ 10,000 staff [in Asia],” he said.

While this was considered, a decision was made to concentrate the Group’s investment on its systems business and BPO business within Australia and New Zealand.

However, Ladd added that the company would continue to operate its Kuala Lumpur and Manila systems business, which includes cloud computing and data centre services.

Revera, Datacom awarded NZ government data centre contracts

Managing power and cooling costs in the data centre

Datacom buys Perth-based data centre

“We continue to invest in data centres where appropriate and will be opening a new facility in Hamilton, New Zealand in May. We’re also about to expand our data centre in Perth.”

According to Ladd, the Perth expansion would include the addition of denser racks for increased capacity.

In addition, he said the Group would be building out its cloud services across Australia, New Zealand and Asia. These services include remote management of clients.

“We’re also acquiring intellectual property of the software variety so that we can grow our business in country specific areas,” Ladd said. “For example, pay roll is country specific and we have payroll businesses in both New Zealand and Australia.”

Follow Hamish Barwick on Twitter: @HamishBarwick

Follow Computerworld Australia on Twitter: @ComputerworldAU, or take part in the Computerworld conversation on LinkedIn: Computerworld Australia

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

Join the newsletter!

Or

Sign up to gain exclusive access to email subscriptions, event invitations, competitions, giveaways, and much more.

Membership is free, and your security and privacy remain protected. View our privacy policy before signing up.

Error: Please check your email address.

Tags investmentdata centresDatacomAsiacontact centresConvergysDatacom Group

More about DatacomDatacom

Show Comments
[]