A major reorganisation of international engineering and IT services and staffing firm CDI Corporation will provide a major impetus to the company’s long-term growth strategy started last year, according to a senior executive.

Earlier this month, CDI - whose markets include Australia, the UK and the US - announced plans to focus on long-term growth by reorganising its structure.

The changes will result in the loss of some 200 jobs worldwide, representing 13-14% of the global workforce, with a similar percentage going in the UK, says Vince Webb, CDI’s vice president investor relations. Most layoffs are expected to take place this month.

The company will now concentrate on five key industries: oil & gas, chemicals, aerospace, industrial products and high tech. In the US, CDI will also focus on infrastructure and defence.

Webb tells Recruiter that the reorganisation will give further impetus to the strategy begun by the company’s president and chief executive Paulett Eberhart a year ago.

“It’s just that our organisation will support it better through the whole company,” he says.

CDI’s staffing and advisory services division, including AndersElite, are being combined to form a professional services staffing division. CDI’s engineering solutions and IT solutions business becomes a global engineering and technology solutions business division.

What is critical, says Webb, is that the changes help the business to move clients towards the company’s “more complex staffing solutions” - in particular its managed services. This is where CDI manages programmes for clients “that might run into hundreds of hires in a two-year period”, he explains.

The reorganisation will also allow the company to better leverage CDI’s relationships with its US customers of mainly Fortune 500 companies in other parts of the business, including the UK.

“Before we probably had four business silos, but we have now flattened and merged it so we leverage a lot of our experts.

“The entire group will have access to better training, better staff processes and procedures, and better access to client list through the organisation.”

Webb says the company is in the process of moving staff into new roles.

However, he adds, on a day-to-day basis customer-facing staff in Anders wouldn’t see much difference.

The UK and Australian part of the business will continue to provide contract staffing services, says Webb.
The reorganisation will save CDI roughly $22m (£14.2m), although a portion will be reinvested in selective hires and in upgrading technology.