By ADAM GIFFORD
Business and IT strategy consulting firm Azimuth is soon to have a new name and an extended role as part of a global e-business services being established by its United States parent, Intelligroup.
New Zealand managing director Donald Moore becomes international senior vice-president in the as-yet-unnamed company, with responsibility
for Asia Pacific and Europe.
Mr Moore said Azimuth, which was acquired from its New Zealand owners a year ago by the New Jersey-based company, was part of Intelligroup's Internet Solutions Group.
This is being spun off to shareholders as a separate company, with Azimuth forming the Asia Pacific arm.
Intelligroup itself is refocusing on the Application Service Provider (ASP) market for customised e-commerce and enterprise applications implementation, management, support and hosting.
Both companies will continue to have a presence in New Zealand. The local branch of Intelligroup is already one of the country's largest SAP integrators.
The internet solutions group had revenues of over $US27 million ($53 million) in the first nine months of 1999, including $US10.7 million in the third quarter, 24 per cent more than the second quarter and 148 per cent more than the same period in 1998.
Moore said Azimuth grew by about 40 per cent over the past year. It now has 80 senior business and information management consultants in New Zealand and Australia, and has also worked on projects in the Philippines, Thailand and Britain.
"We need to grow by another 80 per cent over the next year to meet our budgets," Mr Moore said.
He said while competing companies report problems finding suitably qualified consultants, Azimuth's good name and reputation meant suitable candidates were presenting themselves.
Azimuth, which has been around since 1984, specialises in strategic planning of organisations' IT needs, business process reengineering, process management and change management.
It has also done considerable Y2K work.
"We will now be able to offer customers end-to-end services, from the strategic planning to creating the solutions to content management and maintenance," Mr Moore said.
"Traditionally we have not been big enough to do solutions."
He said Azimuth was able to bring resources from the United States into the region to work on projects. "That gives us a greater ability to deliver."
Intelligroup's training and internet development centre in Hyderabad, India, becomes part of the new internet company.
