Clients of DMR Consulting Canada are in for a big change come April 1.
That’s when the 29-year-old IT consulting firm – originally born in Montreal – and its name becomes officially absorbed into its parent, the world’s third-largest IT services company, Japan-based Fujitsu Ltd.
The DMR name won’t disappear entirely; the old name will continue to be used in Quebec, at least for the time being.
In the rest of country, and in most parts of the world, DMR will be known as Fujitsu Consulting, which will comprise DMR’s current global operations, as well as the application units of its European sister company ICL plus the operations of Fujitsu Systems Business of America and Fujitsu Systems Europe.
Fujitsu Consulting will operate out of DMR’s headquarters in Edison, N.J., will employ 9,000 people, and offer a range of consulting, integration and managed services in medium- and large-size enterprises. Seventeen per cent of the new US$1 billion division’s business will be based in Canada. Through acquisitions and its revamped strategy, Fujitsu Ltd. officials hope to make Fujitsu Consulting a US$1.5 billion company by 2004.
A second division, Fujitsu Services, will offer infrastructure consulting, IT outsourcing and training in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Most of the changes at DMR are occurring behind the scenes, and DMR’s Canadian clients won’t experience any major changes in their day-to-day business dealings, the company says.
“The faces and names all remain the same,” said Scott Garvey, president of DMR Consulting Canada. “The core of what DMR is today … is the core of the new company.”
The full backing of Fujitsu will allow it to pursue enterprise accounts more aggressively, he said, as well as beef up its Atlantic Development Centre in order to reach more U.S. companies and its business intelligence software support services.
Long-established as Japan’s largest IT solutions provider, the worldwide reorganization is part of Fujitsu’s effort to aggressively grow its US$16 billion software and services offering, and to establish itself as a legitimate competitor to Tier 1 heavyweights IBM Global Services and EDS outside of Japan. As part of Fujitsu Consulting, DMR will also focus harder on its parent company’s three key industries: government, financial services and telecommunications.
That may not be so easy for DMR Canada – 44 per cent of its business is devoted to government, but only eight percent to financial services and three per cent to telecom. Energy and utility customers comprise nearly a quarter of its current customer base. Garvey said despite the changing focus, Fujitsu Consulting in Canada will be able to chase the market segments of its choice, and added that Fujitsu is planning to “export that (energy) knowledge to other geographies.”
As for the Quebec decision, Garvey said Fujitsu wants to tread carefully in DMR’s core market. “We’re going to maintain the DMR brand in Quebec. It’s to show the history of our company in the marketplace, and there are things we need to do that are unique in that marketplace.”
Edison, N.J.-based DMR Consulting, with offices across Canada, is at http://www.dmr.com
