Computer Group Continues To Grow
Newcastle Herald
Tuesday October 17, 2000
TWENTY-five years after coming to Newcastle, Compaq Computer Australia Pty Ltd continues to show strong growth.
Customer services manager Newcastle and Northern NSW Pat Callaghan said the latest statistics showed a staff growth rate of 20% over the past 18 months.
`When Compaq, then Digital, came to Newcastle a quarter of a century ago it had three major customers, the Greater Building Society, Newcastle University and what was then the Alcan Aluminium smelter at Kurri Kurri.
`All these years on the company still has those three customers plus something like 100 more including ADI Minehunter, Area Health Services, Sanitarium, electricity suppliers and TAFE colleges.
`In fact we service an area extending from the Hawkesbury to the Queensland border and west to the Tamworth/Armidale and Narrabri area.
`We offer a non-stop service coverage to many of our larger business-critical customers.'
How does a regional office service such a wide area and still manage to win Compaq's customer service excellence award three times, the most recent last year?
`We have an excellent team of highly qualified people strategically placed throughout the State who are able to deliver the level of service businesses demanded these days,' Mr Callaghan said.
He said Compaq employs 80,000 people globally in 114 countries with more than 1500 in the service area across Australia.
`We have 18 in Newcastle boasting combined experience of 180 years and complemented by a network of accredited agents in major towns such as Coffs Harbour, Tamworth and Port Macquarie.
`We have around 13 Microsoft certified engineers in Newcastle as well as Cisco certified network engineers.
`As well we have a network of strategically placed service agents.
`For a lot of customers their whole business strategy is totally dependent on IT and many rely heavily on a strong business partnership with Compaq, their IT vendor.
`We believe Compaq has by far the largest presence of any IT vendor in Newcastle and the depth of resources available through Newcastle are backed by regional resources out of Sydney.
`Most of the work done through our Newcastle service centre involves laptop repairs but an increasing percentage of work is being done in the home user PC market.'
Mr Callaghan said Compaq's logistics store in Newcastle housed stock worth in excess of $1million.
`We do the lot, including consulting, outsourcing, computer hardware upgrades and repairs,' he said.
`And we've just successfully tendered to implement Internet banking to a major institution in Newcastle. Such jobs are typical of the challenges organisations are facing now and also typical of what we can do.
`My charter in Newcastle is to establish business partnerships, build on relationships with major commercial users and work on increasing the awareness that Compaq has a very strong presence in the Hunter, the Central Coast and Northern NSW.'
© 2000 Newcastle Herald
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