Growing its national services footprint has prompted DWS Advance Business Solutions to acquire Microsoft systems integrator, Strategic Data Management (SDM), for $8.3 million. "SDM is predominantly Adelaide-based. We started an office there about two months ago and our strategy has been to move to a geographic space and get a kick-start," DWS CEO, Danny Wallis, said.

"It's a well managed company and it's in the Microsoft space. With all of those things together, it was a very good price we bought it for."

DWS also has offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, while SDM operates in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. Wallis said the systems integrator provided similar services to DWS, but they worked fairly closely on Microsoft products and platforms in providing installation and maintenance. All 85 staff will be kept on-board, including 45 in Adelaide. He said SDM had a vast customer list and larger client base than DWS because of its Microsoft relationship.

DWS provides services around application integration, project management, business intelligence, data warehousing and support.

"It is our mission and strategy to grow this company and, over time, become one of the biggest companies on the ASX," Wallis said. "We always have four or five acquisitions that we look at at any point in time."

DWS planned to keep the SDM branding for smaller customers but take larger clients and staff working on those accounts over to its books.

"SDM will still continue to work in partnership with Microsoft and attain its own clients but it will be used an incubator for future management into our company," Wallis said. The transaction is expected to be completed by January 1.