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Summer 2000
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Following a management restructure begun in late 1999, MDIS Group has been rebranded as Northgate Information Solutions UK Limited, with a new look and a new focus as a ‘front office solutions’ company.
Northgate intends to leverage its 30 years of experience and back-office expertise to focus on providing Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Business Intelligence and e-business solutions for its corporate customers such as Whitbread, Motorola and Coutts & Co, and finding new opportunities in Government initiatives in its traditional public sector markets of healthcare, local government and policing.. MDIS currently has systems in place at 38 local government customers and in 50 of the 52 police forces in the United Kingdom.
The company also intends to develop its existing managed service and applications hosting capabilities, extending them into task and business process outsourcing and application service provision (ASP). This will improve the predictability of the company’s revenues by attracting longer-term contracts and therefore more recurring revenues.
Financially, the company’s year end is being moved to 30th April. This will not only tie in better with the trading patterns of its customers, but will also ensure that the first full year’s trading under the new corporate identity will be on a “clean slate”, not adversely affected by the costs associated with the disposal of Glovia and the restructuring programme. Tighter controls on certain areas of discretionary expenditure and simplified administrative and reporting processes will also contribute to the more efficient running of the company. Restructuring on this scale is rarely without some impact on headcount, and the MDIS staff is expected to be reduced by over 200, with associated savings in payroll and property costs of some £12 million per annum, although these are expected to be offset at least in part by a targeted recruitment programme to support the board’s strategy for growth.
Non-executive chairman Nicholas Irens, in a statement made to the London Stock Exchange in March, said: “I believe that the business has the customer base and technical expertise to seize the opportunities that the buoyant UKmarket for IT services and solutions presents. The Rights Issue and the Disposal are essential steps towards restoring the company to a secure financial position from which it can fully exploit this potential. The company will enter its new financial year commencing 1 May 2000 with a significantly lower cost base, clear leadership and strategy an a strengthened balance sheet and I believe that this will enable the company to achieve acceptable levels of profitability and growth.”
Northgate Information SolutionsLast Updated: 28 Sep 2000