IT dominates BRW Fast 100

IT companies make up 28 of this year's BRW’s Fast 100 list including four of the top 10, despite a tough year for the industry.

The list tracks the 100 fastest growing SMEs and is judged by annual revenue growth averaged over three years. Mint Wireless was the top IT performer at number four with a 185.1 per cent growth rate while Thomas Duryea Consulting dropped one place from last year to 7th after growing 157.36 per cent.

“We were expecting to be lower down the list this year. Our growth was certainly strong in the last 12 months to June 30, but nowhere near the exponential growth achieved in the three years prior,” Thomas Duryea Consulting CEO, Andrew Thomas, said.

Thomas said businesses offering cost-saving solutions and fundamental IT products would do well in the market, despite any difficulties thrown up by the global financial crisis.

“We’re providing virtualisation consolidation services, so we’re helping customers save money,” he said. “If you’re in the right IT business and it’s non-discretionary spending then I guess you’re still going to see demand.”

Thomas expected growth to slow over the next year and the company to fall to the middle of the 2010 BRW Fast 100 list, but predicted continuously strong performance.

“I would expect to drop down the list but still be in there, but the proof will be in the pudding over the next nine months,” he said.

Twenty-first placed managed performance provider, Brennan IT, is confident of a strong year ahead on the back of its performance in the Fast 100.

“We’ve studied that list pretty accurately and when we’re enjoying good times, so is everybody else,” Brennan managing director, David Stevens, said. “I think if we can sneak back inside the top 10 we’d be really happy with that.

Brennan made the list for the sixth year in a row and moved up the list from 60th to 21st thanks to a growth of 91.47 per cent.

“For the last 18 months it’s been about the squeeze in capital, clients haven’t had the resources to invest in IT infrastructure up front,” Stevens said.

“We’ve been positioning managed services, cloud computing, Brennan’s finance and other solutions that have allowed clients to continue investing to develop their environment without that pain of up-front capital expenditure.”

Capital was less of an issue for Brennan's own operations.

“We’ve got significant lines of credit with banks and investors that we haven’t even tapped into, so really it’s about managing business properly. We’ve been lucky enough to use our balance sheet to drive deals with out clients and keep revenues and profitability strong,” Stevens said.

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