Ambit IT & T, the nation’s largest privately-owned IT & T recruitment company, has repositioned itself in the Perth market, with the acquisition of local firm Apex Recruitment.
Apex, founded six years ago by Brian Newbert, has added a number of corporate and government sector clients to Ambit’s WA list.
Ambit’s WA general manager Barry Hardy said Ambit IT & T was itself the subject of acquisition earlier this year, when Australian information technology recruitment company Ises acquired the then US-owned AmBit Technology from Fluor Daniel.
The industry was not only undergoing rationalisation in Australia, but also experiencing significant change and growth, Mr Hardy said.
Excluding the Apex acquisition, Ambit was looking at achieving between 25 and 30 per cent revenue growth over the next 12 months, and within the next five years, Ambit was expecting to achieve national revenue of $250 million, he said.
This would be fuelled by organic growth, and by acquisitions, in particular in Adelaide and Canberra.
The company held 60 national preferred supplier agreements, mostly with software and hardware vendors, and within the government, banking and consulting sectors.
One area of significant change was the shift towards online recruitment, Mr Hardy said.
"We recently received 120 applications for a position advertised online for just eight hours," he said.
Additional change was occurring because many organisations were now spending less on IT projects, but looking for more significant returns from the money they did spend.
In response to the combined industry shifts, Ambit was deploying additional human resources services, such as company profiling, to support clients, and had employed online assessment capabilities to match clients with potential employees who had the right mix of technical and interpersonal competence.
The local experience of Apex senior personnel has moved with the firm, with Mr Newbert taking on a consulting role with Ambit and account manager Tom Leushuis also employed by Ambit.
Ambit envisages employing further account managers and consultants within the coming year.
