Europlus flags up new office ahead of global expansion

IBM partner's IT support business aims to go on growing at new site

West Yorkshire-based IBM services and support partner Europlus Direct has relocated to new £450,000 premises near Leeds Bradford airport.

According to a statement from the deal's financier, HSBC, the new 6,100-sq-ft site will also house sister business OneGlobal, and is intended to support expected revenue growth of £2.2m in 2013 -- up from £7.2m last year.

This will be fuelled partly by planned international expansion over the next 12 months, it said.

"The company was established in 2004 and is seeing strong demand from international markets where computer use is proliferating but without the infrastructure support network required to operate the machines efficiently," HSBC said.

As a result, Europlus founder and chief executive Jim Hart aims to spearhead a sales drive in regions such as Africa, China, Latin America, and India in the next 12 months, it added.

Europlus already has offices in some African countries, as well as Australia, the US, and Europe.

"The move to Airport West has two core benefits: it gives us the capacity to grow, and it also sends out a message to our international clients that we are focused on the overseas markets and are flexible and accessible," Hart said. "This is our logical next step."

Sister company OneGlobal was also set up by Hart, after he found it difficult to recruit multilingual staff for Europlus -- starting to offer its recruitment and translation services to the external market shortly thereafter.

Mike Hemingway, Leeds and Bradford commercial director at HSBC, said: "Europlus is a great role model that has identified a need in the international marketplace and is taking its services around the world."

"We believe the UK's economic recovery will be export-led," he added.

According to a press statement from Michelle Littlewood, managing director of worldwide IBM support at Europlus, the company resells IBM maintenance contracts to 120 countries around the world and has done so since 2004.