Opus International Consultants(MIS100 2010)

By Jess Meyer | Thursday, May 27 2010

2009 ranking: 50

Senior IS executive: Bruce Tinsley, CIO
Reports to: CFO
Size of IS shop: 35

PCs: 2465
Mobile PCs: 600
Terminals: 165
Hand-held devices: 200
Total screens: 3430

Industry: Business management and scientific services
PC environment: Dell; Windows XP, 7
Server environment: Dell, Linux, Windows
DBMS: Postgres, MySQL, SQL
Address: 100 Willis Street, Wellington
Website: www.opus.co.nz
Key IS projects this year: Not listed.

After a challenging 2009, Opus International Consultants posted successful results in February this year. “Reflecting the recession, revenue of $367.8 million was down 1 percent on the prior year, but Opus achieved EBIT growth of 5.3 percent to $25.3 million, and net profit after tax growth of 6.3 percent to $18.6 million,” said the chairman, Kerry McDonald, at the time.

Following a 10 percent decrease in budgets and projects in 2009, the IT department is expected to experience no reductions this year in terms of budget, staff numbers or projects, says new CIO Bruce Tinsley, formerly CIO of PGG Wrightson. Having joined Opus in December 2009, Tinsley’s main objective for 2010 is to refocus IT to better support Opus’ global operations.

Tinsley sees IT primarily achieving two objectives for the business as a whole — strategically enabling business strategies and better provisioning access to intellectual property through a focus on knowledge management and collaboration — supporting a staff network across New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the UK.

A review of the organisation’s telecommunications strategy that was proposed in 2009 is expected to be completed this year. This will include a review of unified communications, VoIP, wireless and mobility requirements. Additionally, a significant upgrade to the ERP will be a focus early in 2010.