Somerville celebrates 40 years of serving customers in Australia

End-to-end technology service provider Somerville says it's riding a wave of strong year-on-year growth as it celebrates its 40th anniversary.

Established in 1982 by its current CEO, Craig Somerville, the Australian technology service provider started as an electrical contracting business. Over the years, the company says it has significantly contributed to the Australian IT channel business ecosystem and delivered innovation to many of Australia's leading mid-market organisations and the K-12 education sector.

Today, Somerville employs a team of 80 people, and its customer base in 2022 includes over 500 mid-market organisations across the education, banking and finance, professional services and manufacturing spheres, many of which have relied on the company to operate as their de facto IT department for more than a decade.

Somerville says it delivers innovation and services from support for endpoints and networks to security and cloud platform integration. The company says it has invested millions of dollars into its network infrastructure to ensure it can deliver cutting-edge solutions to clients. This infrastructure is high-performance, scalable, resilient and bullet-proof, with an emphasis on security.

Earlier this year, Somerville announced the launch of a $1.2 million national network upgrade, powered by Cisco carrier network technologies, to support its expanding customer base and cater to demanding connectivity requirements. The upgrade doubled the company's network capacity and supported the company's strategy to build a resilient network infrastructure to support customer connectivity requirements and guarantee network uptime.

"We've enjoyed a fantastic 40-year journey and, over this time, have both employed and worked alongside an amazingly talented, highly skilled and diverse workforce which enabled us to capitalise on our early success in the cloud to serve the needs of many of todays high-profile enterprises," says Craig Somerville.

"Over the years, we've tapped into this momentum to extend our offerings in the areas of networking, connectivity, security and managed services to satisfy the growing demand from our customers in the region."

Somerville's services are grouped into four technology pillars: connect, cloud, secure, and the modern workplace. Together, they allow the company to build bespoke solutions that align with client requirements. In addition, each of Somerville's clients has direct access to an Australian-based skilled technical engineer. In the 2022 financial year, Somerville's headcount rose 12%, turnover was up by 15%, and the company achieved year-on-year growth of 20%.

LSH Auto head of IT Alex Wong says Somerville is a company that is big enough to deliver and small enough to care.

"Somerville is the right fit for our own business. They are their own ISP, they have tech talent and purchasing power, and LSH is not like a drop in the ocean for them," he says.

"You can't match the skills of a dedicated solutions provider, so choosing a provider like Somerville gives you access to the best of the best."

Craig Somerville says in the immediate future, the years ahead will see the company laser-focused on infrastructure and delivering innovation in multi-cloud while simultaneously accelerating its security practice momentum.

"We're absolutely stoked with excitement about the potential for technology to deliver a better tomorrow and looking forward to playing a part in realising the true potential of Australia's digital future in the years ahead," he says.

"Finally, I'd like to take this opportunity to extend a huge vote of thanks to all our past and current employees for their incredible dedication and contribution to supporting our culture of innovation and customer-centricity, which has stood the test of time over many decades. As in the past 40 years, our skilled employees will continue to enable us to bring best in class support to the evolving technology requirements of Australian business."

Key Milestones:

1985: Somerville Networking Division established

1995: Systems Division established

1997: ISP service (Managed Security Service Provider) launched

2010: Opens Brisbane office

2011: Managed Services Division launched

2013: Private Cloud Services launched

2015: Cybersecurity Division defined

2021: Expanded network into New Zealand