IT SERVICES and consulting provider Version 1 is forecasting revenue growth of 35 per cent for 2011 and plans to recruit more staff this year, having added 60 employees during 2010.
The Irish-owned firm signed deals collectively worth €3 million in recent months, including a contract for business intelligence with Musgrave Group and providing software application development services to Irish Life and the Revenue Commissioners.
Although Version 1 has not filed accounts yet for 2010, managing director Justin Keatinge said the company exceeded its revenue target of €17.5 million.
The company was also named as Ireland’s leading indigenous IT service provider by the market research company firm IDC.
In the annual survey, Irish technology buyers rated Version 1 equally alongside multinational IT service providers.
Over the past year, many organisations have begun shopping around for IT services and Mr Keatinge claimed Version 1 is winning market share against rivals by competing on quality and price.
“Customers may have been using a particular vendor for a long time but this particular economic environment is making them seek out other providers and they’re more open to change,” he said.
The public sector is under cost pressure and this has led to Version 1 winning more government business, according to Mr Keatinge.
Public sector customers account for close to 40 per cent of revenues and he expects that figure to remain constant.
In addition to its application support and managed IT services offerings, the company also expects to expand its business intelligence services significantly this year.
Mr Keatinge said business intelligence tools are becoming more popular as organisations look to better analyses.
Last summer Version 1 acquired the business and assets of PM Group’s IT services arm PM Centrix and Mr Keatinge said he is interested in further deals with similar IT services organisations. “We are keen to do bolt-on acquisitions . . . that might bring us complementary services, excellent staff or key customers,” he said.
Version 1 now employs 220, up from 160 at the start of 2010. While 15 of those staff came via the PM Centrix acquisition, the remainder of recruits were as a result of organic growth.
Mr Keatinge said the company has 30 job vacancies it is hoping to fill over the next two months and said the firm intends to employ “closer to 300” by the end of 2011.
