On the path to regional powerhouse status

Ask any business to document top-level aspirations and chances are – in one form of strategic priority or another – three overriding objectives will arise… serve customers, scale capabilities and strengthen credibility.

In a market built on a win-win culture, it’s rare that a single action can multiply the mutual-gains effect even further. Entering win-win-win territory is no easy task.

Fresh from unveiling plans to unite Asia and Australia operations under the banner of Asia Pacific, Logicalis is entering such territory.

Effective 1 June 2024, this strategic realignment will consolidate 1,600 employees with a collective revenue upwards of $350 million in USD. Unification will span 10 countries as Australia officially joins forces with Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan, Philippines and Vietnam.

The newly formed entity will be led by Chong-Win Lee as CEO of Asia Pacific. Anthony Woodward will continue in his role as CEO of Australia – reporting to Chong-Win – as well as assuming additional responsibilities leading a special task force focused on “fostering innovation and identifying synergistic, joint opportunities” across the region.

“The strategic consolidation of Logicalis’ operations across Australia and Asia marks a pivotal moment in the company’s continued growth and evolution,” Chong-Win said.

“The aim of this reorganisation is to build a powerhouse capable of delivering high-impact technology solutions more efficiently for customers across Asia Pacific, while still providing the local expertise and support that Logicalis customers value.”

According to Chong-Win, regional alignment with customer investment priorities is fundamental given an increase in spending across application modernisation, cloud and cyber security – wrapped up in a next-generation managed services offering.

Throw digital transformation, data and artificial intelligence (AI) into the mix and an “exciting space” is emerging for solution providers to capitalise.

“We’re on that trajectory but currently, no solution provider is ahead of the game so this represents a great opportunity in region,” Chong-Win stated.

“We can now bring all of the best brains within Logicalis together and formulate a strategy to deliver meaningful impact with leading technologies such as AI. We have the strength and tenacity to achieve that vision.”

Scaling through skills and synergies

For a technology services provider of global, regional and local standing, unification in Asia Pacific represents an inevitable evolution.

Both Asia and Australia entities held a joint workshop 9-10 months ago to assess capabilities and skill sets to better understand how to mutually leverage expertise.

In Asia, long-standing experience in application modernisation and data modernisation was identified following the acquisition of Singapore-based iZeno in 2020. This was in addition to Security Operations Centre (SOC) specialisation based on a commitment to bolster cyber credentials.

Meanwhile in Australia, a strong heritage in running full-scale managed services was highlighted for replication, supported by deep-level skills deploying complex Microsoft solutions – accelerated by the acquisition of Melbourne-based Corporate Network Integration (CNI) in 2018 – as well as operating a private cloud environment.

“It’s very clear the areas in which we can complement each other,” Chong-Win outlined.

The task force led by Woodward will take such synergies to the next level of integration amid plans to articulate a strategic roadmap forward from a talent and technology perspective – unlocking business value is of paramount importance.

“Formally combining the strengths of Logicalis Australia and its Asia counterparts is an acceleration of what has already been happening organically,” Woodward said.

In short, the combination is designed to enhance service delivery while delivering a “cohesive” solution portfolio to customers. Key industry sectors will also be targeted, such as financial services, government and health.

“This evolution lets Logicalis Australia and our customers leverage high-value digital capabilities from across the region, ensuring faster, more competitive and more comprehensive service offerings,” Woodward added.

“It also strengthens the local team’s onshore capabilities while integrating best practices and expertise from across Asia, enabling the delivery of scalable, cost-effective managed service options for customers.”

The most profound example of unification in action resides in Malaysia, namely Cyberjaya.

Australia already operates a sizeable services facility in the city housing approximately 120 individuals, which has ran for more than 10 years. This will now be combined with Logicalis Malaysia and iZeno Malaysia entities to create a combined workforce of over 200 employees in the country.

“We will show up as a strong solutions integrator in Malaysia,” Chong-Win noted. “This is at the crux of our intention to combine capabilities, services and experiences to scale our business across Asia Pacific. Through this unification, we can now accelerate that transformation.”

Discussions between Chong-Win and Woodward were already underway in relation to building a Malaysia-based shared services centre for both entities, with the creation of an Asia Pacific business now removing any administrative or organisational obstacles.

Specific to technology, the SOC capabilities of Asia will now also be enhanced by the Network Operations Centre (NOC) nous of Australia – both of which are housed in Malaysia.

“This is one of the key reasons why we want to combine now because the opportunity is evident,” he stressed. “We can now build additional capacity and accelerate time to market for our commercial teams to deliver all of this value to our customers.”

Supporting regional efforts will be a vendor portfolio housing core Microsoft and Cisco businesses, with cloud, cyber security and managed services as key areas of focus. In Asia, Atlassian was recently on-boarded as a strategic vendor.

“This will help the company achieve greater influence with vendors and deliver even greater outcomes for customers into the future,” Chong-Win added.

“Like Atlassian, if we start to cultivate partners that we deem to be strategic then we will try to replicate that across the region. Equally, vendors are also seeking partners with capabilities across the entire theatre rather than just a handful of countries.”

Balancing regional consistency with local ingenuity

The regional entity will plug into a global organisation with annualised revenues of $1.7 billion, from operations in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific and Africa. More than 7,000 employees are located in 30 territories across the world, serving over 10,000 customers in the process.

“We are very cognisant that to be a successful global solutions integrator for customers, you must cater to local requirements,” Chong-Win cautioned. “In other words, to be truly global you need to be local.”

Given that both Asia and Australia originated from the ground up in each respective market, Chong-Win citied such on-the-ground origins as a key competitive advantage on the regional stage.

“We pay a lot of attention to how that translates to the way we do business in the real world,” he acknowledged. “Deploying global or regional solutions means our employees must collaborate and we have frameworks in place to remove that internal friction when working on cross-country deals.

“Namely, commercial considerations, multiple levels of margin stacking and understanding that some customers very much prefer to engage with one party in one country when deploying global solutions. So we have structured the business to ensure that model of integration is possible.”

Building on this are programs designed to incentivise teams to collaborate in multiple markets with Chong-Win expecting the volume of Asia Pacific transactions to “increase significantly” once the integration process starts.

“Each entity will still have the ability and autonomy to be responsive to customers in country and provide a level of bespoke solutions that allow us to be effective,” he clarified.

Structurally speaking, a core Asia Pacific office will exist as an umbrella housing individual countries, tasked with creating and implementing governance frameworks and programs, alongside regional tools, processes and standardisations.

“The goal for Logicalis is clear: to harness the collective strengths of the company’s diverse operations to drive innovation and growth throughout Australia, Asia, and the globe,” summarised Bob Bailkoski, CEO of Logicalis.

“This reorganisation represents a strategic response to the evolving IT landscape and reinforces Logicalis’ commitment to developing solutions that support its customers’ success in the digital age.”