CMG (company)

The company was founded in 1964 by Bob Collins, Bryan Mills and Chairman Doug Gorman – the first letters of their surnames forming the original company name.^[1] In fact, Bob Collins never actually commenced with the company, his place being taken by Bob Fawcett.

CMG started trading in August 1965, when Bryan Mills and Bob Fawcett gave up their jobs (with Burroughs and Honeywell respectively) and started working out of their homes. By late 1965 they had moved into the basement of Doug Gorman's house in Blackheath, South East London. Doug had also left his job and was working full-time for the company having worked out his 3 months notice at Cooper Bros. One of the earliest employees, Barbara Ward, who joined the company in 1965 as a secretary, worked her way up in the company to Group Director of Personnel and became one of the best-paid women in Britain.^[2]

By the time she was hired, the founders had developed, and were selling, the Accountants' Time Ledger package. They bought only as much computer time as was needed for the work available, and produced a fully comprehensive package service. In 1966 they opened offices in Davis House in Croydon. A rapid expansion ensued followed by a move to Sunley House in Croydon and offices being opened in the Netherlands in 1969 and later in Germany.^[1] In 1985 CMG acquired the bureau business of Baric Computing Services from ICL. This acquisition brought several new locations to its UK business and, when merged with the existing Croydon based bureau operation, formed the basis of CMG's growth in Outsourcing and Managed Services throughout the 1990s.

Although Bryan Mills and Bob Fawcett left CMG in the 1980s, Doug Gorman continued to lead CMG until his death in 1995. Doug Gorman in his role as chairman of CMG was succeeded by Cor Stutterheim. Bob Fawcett died in 2012.^[3]

Bryan Mills was interviewed by the IT Archives in 2016 in which he recounted his personal CMG journey.

CMG was known for its no-nonsense equality rules, which included eating lunch together daily in "the kitchen", calling all employees by their first names, ranking all employees per company holding each year and publishing this ranking (including salaries!) to its members, and demanding compliance to the company quality system "Commander" by all employees, all of the time. Sanctions included a "CAR" or Corrective Action Request, which could and often did result in demotion (lower ranking and sometimes lower salary). Since the company offered salary services as a product, salary management was understandably an open topic of conversation within CMG walls. All staff were required to wear suits, even junior engineers.

Each CMG company had approximately 150 employees, with between 60-80 consultants, one managing director (MD), one associate director per 10-12 consultants (AD), one quality manager, one accountant, and one secretary per director. If a company grew to 120 consultants, it was "split" into two. This created a policy of management that depended on CMG Group growth, whereby aspiring directors from the consultancy ranks could be nominated by their MD to take an internal course that was also an assessment. There were no AD's who had not passed the 4-day intensive course, known as the Pre Management Training Course (PMTC).

Groups of companies were divided into Sectors; these were Finance, Insurance, Telecoms, Transport&Industry, Utilities, Commercial (Oil&Gas), Public and Managed Services. Overseeing these were country boards, and above them were the Group Board. Once a year, each company would be visited personally by a delegation of Group Board officers.

CMG floated on the London and Amsterdam stock exchanges in December 1995.^[4] Until that time, only employees and their immediate families could purchase shares in CMG, and at its peak about 85% of employees owned shares in the company. The IPO had the effect of imposing the first barriers to the company tradition of openness, since not all deals could be openly discussed after going public, and each company holding was beholden to secrecy guidelines. This started a slow change-over in company culture, a trend that increased when other companies were bought and merged into the CMG name.