A half century of growth
Founded as Comprehensive Designers Inc. in 1950 to meet postwar demands for trained contract engineers, CDI's offerings currently include technical services, temporary services, consulting, and management placement. The business grew during the '50s and '60s, expanding internationally and going public in 1967. Six years later, it shortened its name to the more elegant CDI Corporation. Since then, the company has grown significantly, aided by a series of acquisitions of various staffing and support services firms.
CDI's pool runneth over
CDI's combination of outsourcing and headhunting services allows it to capitalize on the varied personnel needs of today's large corporations. Its technical services division is the largest in the world, employing over 26,000 engineers, CAD designers, systems analysts, and other professional personnel. Companies from a wide range of industries hire CDI employees to perform tasks too complex for them to do themselves, paying their salaries and providing CDI with a healthy finder's fee. Offering engineers the freedom to work in many different areas for a variety of companies, CDI enjoys a considerable advantage over high-tech companies (including many of its clients) in recruiting.
Trying to build on success
Today's Staffing, CDI's other outsourcing division, offers clerical, legal and financial temporary staffing services to over 11,000 clients. CDI's Management Recruiting International division, the largest professional recruiting service in the world, places 30,000 employees in full-time jobs every year. In addition, the company offers extensive information technology, telecommunications and marine services.
How about them subs?
1999 was a banner year for acquisitions at CDI, with the firm snatching up a brace of smaller temp firms both stateside and abroad. In March its Today's Staffing subsidiary bought Chicago-based Staffing Consultants, a clerical and administrative support firm, and its UK-based subsidiary, CDI-Anders Glaser Wills, bought technical staffing firm EuroElite. The next month it bought Humana International Group, a British temp firm with 135 branches throughout Europe and Asia. And in December, it bought up Computer Personnel Ltd., which specialized in technology staffing.
In March 2000, Today's Staffing acquired Connection Companies, Inc., another hiring services agency. The purchase adds four Denver offices to Today's Staffing, a perk sure to help the firm, as Denver has one of the nation's largest markets for temporary clerical staffing. While acquisitions slowed down afterwards, the company was able to transform its recent growth spurt into a heap of new contracts and partnerships.
Struggling
Just when it seemed CDI was about to burst at the seems with growth, its luck - and the economy - began to run out, and the sudden drop in demand for skilled temps hit the company hard. In September 2001 it announced that it would reduce its workforce by 250 and shutter 22 offices, news coming on the heels of a 9 percent contraction in third quarter 2001 earnings.
In January 2002, with earnings continuing to drop, the firm announced the first of a two-step restructuring process: during 2002, the company will sell off a number of non-core subsidiaries, lay off approximately 370 more employees, close 25 more offices and realign its remaining business into four units: CDI Permanent Placement, CDI Temporary Staffing, CDI Professional Services and CDI Project Management. To that effect, in April 2002 it sold its Modern Engineering business to Virtual Supply Chain Engineering Acquisition Company.
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