Sherwood Computer Services Plc has made 61 people redundant from the total 400 it employs, as it has decided to focus on the Lloyd’s of London insurance markets, although the public sector and financial retail services markets remain important. Staff have gone from Romford largely because Sherwood has started to take advantage of new technology such as on-line systems which require less supervision and so on. Employees have also left the company’s Gloucester office where they were involved in new business development for the retail financial services arm. This market is suffering acutely from the recession at present and so less effort is being put into short-term projects, although long term business opportunities for 1992 are still being explored. The Swansea and Manchester offices have been closed. Sherwood’s Mike Lusby says that the company’s new teamworking approach to work (CI No 1,552) is in place and working very well. However the software and computer services firm has not made any secret of the fact that it would seriously consider some kind of combination with another company if the right one were to come along.
