Briggs leads MDIS charge for growth

Services group MDIS has formed a consulting and professional services division and headhunted Compaq executive Keith Briggs to lead it.

The group brought together existing services businesses from various parts of the group - which accounted for five per cent of the company's #120 million turnover - and placed them under one umbrella.

Briggs told PC Dealer the company had earmarked the technical services market as having potential for great growth and would include added value business intelligence services, consultancy and training.

Analysts set growth for the target area of the market at 19 per cent each year, but Briggs projected growth from five per cent of revenue to about 20 per cent.

Briggs, whose career started with British Aerospace, was poached from his more recent position of general manager at Tandem after 15 years' service - Tandem having been taken over by Compaq about a year ago.

'I spent a lot of time evaluating the company before I moved,' said Briggs.

'I didn't leave Compaq because I had to, but because MDIS offered a unique opportunity.'

He said MDIS was on its way out of problems which had hounded the company: 'The past is the past, chequered and difficult it may have been, but I wouldn't join MDIS to keep the company static. We will be enjoying significant growth.'