Recent turmoil in the tech sector could be just what the doctor ordered for WiseTech Global – the $25 billion logistics software maker that is receiving plenty of love from investors as one of Australia’s most successful technology companies.
While redundancies and closures have galvanised the local start-up scene, WiseTech boss Richard White is keen to add to the company’s 3000-strong global team. Almost a third of that workforce is based in Australia, and White says the company needs more skilled staff to join its ranks.
“We have a very global, diverse business; we are growing in a sizeable way every year; and we are very profitable, so we are always looking to hire senior software engineers and people with technical skills.”
WiseTech Global boss Richard White says the technology sector is still losing out to banks and law firms when it comes to picking up talent.Credit: Janie Barrett
Finding tech talent remains a highly contested space, with big banks, telcos and government agencies all looking for recruits. But White says a certain breed of IT workers naturally gravitates towards working for technology firms, especially those who are well established and in the green.
“The turmoil in non-profitable tech and the start-up space has worked in our favour, and there are people who would want to work for banks and other players, but if you want to work for a pure technology player and an innovator, then there is no one better than us.
“We serve a complex industry [freight and logistics], so we need tenure, depth and commitment from people, and that’s why we reward them. A large part of what we offer when we hire talent is equity in WiseTech.
“And it’s good equity, not done at a strike price [the fixed price at which an employee can purchase shares of the company, with future profits dependent on the stock rising above that price] but as a zero-price option, so it’s fully in the money.”
For those who have signed up to the WiseTech promise since its ASX listing in 2016, the commitment has paid healthy dividends. In just over seven years, WiseTech’s value has grown 25 times compared with when it listed. Its shares are up by more than 55 per cent for the year too.
With rising interest rates proving to be a backbreaker for non-profitable technology companies, many of which have had to cut staff or raise money at lower valuations, White said the local ecosystem is being further hamstrung by a poor training pipeline.
“We are underweight in our education system and its ability to generate highly qualified talented people. You can look at China and India and their focus on technology education – it’s clear that they have got incredible results, and they are amplifying that. We [Australia] haven’t done that well.
“We need to get people excited about technology careers, but as a sector we are losing them to law, accounting and banking. Building deep, valuable, long-term intellectual property is not really going to happen in start-ups; while they create the opportunity, you need to put in time to build valuable, sustainable and irreplaceable value.”
One notable issue with our education system, White says, is that there is little understanding around the value of a hard science and technology career – and funding is not the problem.
“The amount of engagement in an area like software engineering is actually quite low; right now, a lot of our talent is still coming from overseas.
“We put a lot of money into education in 2012/13/14 as a strategy, but it didn’t make any change to the outcomes, so I don’t think it’s a funding problem, and it’s not about teachers and talent. It’s a fundamental social issue,” he says.
Technology still gets a bad rap as far as being seen as a provider of stable jobs, a hangover from the dotcom bubble of the early 2000s, and the recent downturn in the sector is likely to add to that sentiment. But White says the current turbulence is a natural, and quite likely a healthy, shift in focus away from non-profitable, growth-at-all-cost companies.
“There was a moment when there was a high level of liquidity available to start-ups. It was all about burning cash,” he says. “This was one of those irrational exuberance moments.
“Unprofitable tech is clearly not the way to go forward, and every investor and VC is asking for a path to profit, and that has tapered off, this unreasonable froth that doesn’t provide a lot of value.”
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