International expansion continues for Europlus Direct

IBM services and support company Europlus Direct is gearing up for further growth after announcing its intention to expand further into Africa, China, Latin America and India over the next 12 months.

Saltaire-headquartered Europlus, a finalist in TheBusinessDesk.com’s 2012 Yorkshire Business Masters awards, already has offices in a number of African countries, as well as in Australia, South Africa and Europe.

Earlier this year it broke into the US after launching an office in Tampa, Florida.

Chief executive Jim Hart said: “Over the course of the last few years, expansion into Africa has been a key area of concentration as the region’s banks, telecommunications and oil companies have significantly expanded their operations, creating heightened demand for new computer systems.

“We now have a firm presence in Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa and as a result, our African sales grew by 50% last year alone. We predict that Africa will continue to be a key market for us over the next few years and are planning on increasing services into Zimbabwe and Kenya during 2013. These African locations will be amongst a total of 20 new countries that we plan to target in total this year.”

Established in 2004, Europlus Direct said it has achieved significant export-led growth due to its agile approach to new markets, setting up and offering its services promptly in areas where IT equipment is being sold with little available supporting infrastructure.

Foreign successes for the company has been such that the business has been recognised with two Queens Awards for Enterprise in International Trade over the course of the last five years.

Hart said: “Trading overseas is vital to achieve business growth and remain profitable in light of the difficulties our domestic economy presents. We have achieved real success in the UK, but by trading overseas we have been able to take advantage of the growth opportunities also presented by smaller, emerging markets. If we hadn’t expanded internationally we’d be a far smaller company.

“If you consider that, since 2010 we have seen overseas earnings growth increase by 107% and that currently over 95% of our sales revenues can be attributed to business from abroad – you’ll see that seeking out and exporting to the right markets is big business for us.”

The company, which employs more than 40 staff, had grown turnover from £5.4m in 2011 to £7.2m last year.

Europlus expects to turnover between £8m and £9m in 2013.

Hart added: “Of course, operating on such a huge international scale, whilst good for sales and profits, has presented us with quite a few obstacles such as differing levels of sales tax in the USA and having to address working with different business cultures to ensure our approach and operating terms are right for each country.

“As a result I knew we needed to work with a team of accountants that operated on the same international level as we do and so I sought advice early on from accountants Mazars. Working with one company has made that side of things much easier, enabling me to concentrate soley on the running of my businesses. They have supported our global expansion through their own international office network and will be instrumental in the plans for growth in Africa.”

Much of the organisation’s foreign success, according to Hart, can also be attributed to the launch of its sister company One Global, a translation and multilingual recruitment service he launched in 2008, to complement Europlus’ multilingual services and help the firm increase presence abroad.

He said: “After our initial success in 2008 with the Queen’s Award, it became clear that in order to continue our global expansion, high-quality multi-lingual sales professionals were required as part of the localisation process.

“Unfortunately, these were in short supply and we could not find a suitable supplier. We therefore established our own in-house translation and language recruitment division One Global, whose services I believe have underpinned the growth we have seen in the last five years.

“We manage a network of 2500 translators through One Global, all of whom are quality assessed as well as a resident in the country of the language they speak – ensuring that they are familiar with the current cultural and linguistic idiosyncrasies of that location.”

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