Dimension Data 2010 Revenue Soar As IT Budgets Open Up

Dimension Data released its annual financial results Wednesday, showing increased revenue across all lines of business and all market segments.

Revenue for the year ending September 30 was $4.74 billion, up 19.4 percent, or 9.9 percent discounting currency fluctuations, from the year-ago period. The company registered earnings of $237.8 million, up 8.2 percent from the year-ago period.

The company's Systems Integration business delivered a strong performance across all regions, with revenue growing by 14.9 percent to $3.89 billion and operating profit by 31.8 percent to $183 million.

Dimension Data released its annual financial results Wednesday, showing increased revenue across all lines of business and all market segments.

The solution provider's positive results came despite losing $60 million worth of business just two years ago when one of its largest customers, Lehman Brothers, closed at the start of the recent economic meltdown.

Jere Brown, CEO of Dimension Data Americas, said the growth was led by data center solutions, with virtualization, video and collaboration solutions strong performers.

"We have a very strong enterprise client base. That market rebounded. Global pharma, financial markets all rebounded. We saw growth across all lines of business, including data center, security, managed services …and we saw growth across all market segments," said Brown.

"Budgets started freeing up about a year ago; we started seeing large refresh projects, and large clients looking to consolidate vendors to insure maximum pricing advantages," Brown added. "We also saw more selective outsourcing, which helped our managed services. So it was a combination of factors: The economy improving, and companies recognizing that investments needed to be made, including new tech in visual, which helped them cut their travel costs."

Such hard-won gains were not made at the expense of employee satisfaction. Brown pointed to its annual employee satisfaction survey, which, for the fifth consecutive year, saw satisfaction increase. Brown's Americas saw a satisfaction score of 4.0 on a 5.0 scale.

The growth is also the result of a strategy, developed in mid-2008, to drive more specialization in sales and pre-sales, hesaid. "Our clients needed a higher degree of specialization. They were looking for deeper knowledge around technology. So we revamped our go to market model. We were strong in fulfillment and wanted to drive demand in the market."

And timing is everything, he explained. While other VARs felt a cash crunch, Dimension had a healthy balance sheet, and could therefore make strategy changes from a position of strength.

"We made changes while we were not financially impaired like some of our competitors. We continued to invest and make acquisitions to fill out geographies, specifically in Latin America," he said. "We can look back now and say we're glad to have made those changes."