Australian Resellers Daily News, 9^th October, 2001

Adelaide HR developer wins DCITA deal

By Brett Winderford

SYDNEY

Adelaide-based human resources software developer Empower International will rake in $1 million as part of a successful tender for the outsourcing of human resources (HR) functions at the Department of Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA).

Empower International a former part of a consortium headed up by unrelated UK-based HR company Empower Group, a subsidiary of recruitment company Manpower. The consortium won the DCITA'S $6 million contract to provide recruitment, training, performance management, remuneration, payroll, and general management of HR processes for the Government department's 750 staff.

Included in the $6 million contract is approximately $1 million in software and services. Empower International's software suite, Empower-HR, provides employees "self service" functionality so that they can enter requests to management through the browser, the company claims.

Empower International chief executive officer Dean Littlefield said he also believes Empower-HR won the favour of the DCITA due to the security and confidentiality the software ensures for user's data. "Having sensitive information available over the net is a big issue," he said. "We have done a lot of work to make sure it remains private. I guess we would have lost the deal without it."