Alex Turner meets MIKE DAVIES, managing director of Chester-based FirstLine Digital

THE second stage of the digital switchover in the North West takes place today, with the remaining analogue channels turned off.

Part of a five-year programme that is being rolled out region-by-region, it is a marker of the big changes the industry has seen in recent years.

FirstLine Digital, in Saltney, Chester, has grown along with its industry and is playing a key role in the switchover.

It has a contract, potentially worth £60m over the five-year period, to install satellite and aerial equipment for people who are eligible for assistance, such as the disabled and over-75s.

The firm was founded in 2001 by a quartet of people whose experience stretches back almost to the start of the satellite industry.

Mike Davies is FirstLine Digital’s managing director, and his fellow shareholders – Mike Cooke, Mark Swift and Paul Butt – are still an integral part of the management team today.

Davies and Cooke worked together at another satellite company before operating franchises providing installations.

Cooke went on to run another company, Beresford Swift, with Mark Swift – where they were joined in 2000 by Davies and Paul Butt, who were working together at Sky TV.

FirstLine Digital effectively grew out of Beresford Swift and, eight years later, is a £38m-turnover firm forecasting a rise to £45m for 2010.

Davies said: “We have been averaging round 20% year-on-year growth since we started.”

One key contract with Sky has grown to be worth over £26m a year. The satellite giant had 16 preferred installation partners when Beresford Swift held the contract for Chester and North Wales, but now there are just three partners nationally – with FirstLine Digital operating from Merseyside to Cornwall and South Wales to Birmingham.

“We have primarily built our company on the back of the contract with Sky,” he said. “We have also always provided that service as a satellite and aerial installer for the domestic market.

“The reason we feel we have managed to maintain the Sky contract is by our service and flexibility.

“One of the unique things about us is that we are a seven-day company, so we can provide the same level of engineering resource seven days a week.”

FirstLine Digital has a strong presence in the commercial market, doing installations for pubs, clubs, prisons, hospitals, and social housing.

The company also operates three trade counters, in Chester, Birmingham and Bristol, selling over 1,200 different product lines.

“We do have the aspirations and the commercial plans to add another three trade counters within the next year,” said Davies.

The development of its wholesale division is part of a concerted effort to build broader foundations for the company.

Davies said: “One of our biggest motives for moving forward is to become more diverse and offer a wider range of services – whether it’s plumbing, electrical or something else – because we can invest in the right thing that fits. That’s where we are now.

“The business has a growth strategy.

“In the last 12 months, we have rebranded the company and started to put a face it. We have developed some core values in the company and even a mission statement.”

Davies and his fellow directors are also focused on driving changes internally which will create the structure for the business to continue to grow.

Structural changes have been accompanied by presentations around the country, explaining the strategy to staff to ensure they understand what is happening.

“Admittedly we have done a damn good job for many years – we are all pretty astute and clued-up guys,” said Davies.

“But the realisation for me is that with such growth we have to invest in the right people in the business and bring the right level of skills in the business to move forward.

“We are at that level now where corporate governance stamps its feet really hard. We realise that we have to look onwards and upwards.”

The step-change being made is to launch the next phase of the company’s development.

Davies said: “We are all quite young – Paul is 50 and the rest of us are between 38 and 42.

“We have to drive big change and place the company on the map. At the same time, with the success of the company, we have to be looking five years ahead.

“When we are putting numbers into the strategy, the numbers have to be meaningful. That’s where the step change comes in.”

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