HP centre staffing boosts Christchurch economy

Centre is contributing to region, development council head says

The Hewlett Packard Global Applications Centre is on track to add a $40 million GDP boost to the Canterbury region, after launching in Christchurch eleven months ago.

Canterbury Development Council (CDC) chief executive Bill Luff, who made the bullish statement about the centre’s impact on the local economy at its opening last August, says the centre is further ahead than he predicted. He expects the centre to meet his expectations when it reaches a mature staffing level of around 250.

“Clearly it’s attracting new business for HP and for Christchurch, and judging by the recruiting drive that HP has got on ... after one year they look firmly ahead of where I thought they would be,” he says.

The centre offers application development, modernisation and management services focussed on Java/J2EE, Microsoft .Net, testing and legacy systems, in addition to SAP and Oracle capabilities.

NZ applications services manager Alex Bouma says in the past year it has acquired two anchor clients – Meridian Energy and the Department of Internal Affairs. The centre is also part of the HP’s regional cluster of innovation centres. “We are dovetailed into the Philippines cluster and we have set Christchurch up as a backend to the New Zealand and Australia business,” he says.

But its the local contract wins that have helped fuel the staff recruitment. HP policy prevents him revealing exact staff numbers, but the centre will have doubled its initial workforce by October. (At the time of opening staff numbers were estimated to be around 50).

Luff says CDC is using the HP centre to attract other multinational firms to the region. “We have put a number of companies looking at the benefits of investing in Christchurch in touch with HP.”

CDC is about to launch an initiative called Project ICT Smart, as part of its economic development strategy. It intends to leverage the city’s investment in the $30 million publically owned, open-access fibre network company called Enable (that Luff is chairman of).

Enable has put forward a bid to partner with the government in a Local Fibre Company for the Canterbury region.