CGA Strategy moves on Europe

CGA Strategy, the UK licensed trade research consultancy, has revealed plans to establish services in the Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland.

The new services will operate out of offices in Amsterdam and Dublin and will replicate CGA's UK model, looking at outlet and brands indices as well as bespoke research.

The move into Continental Europe has come as a direct result of client demand to fill the gap in on trade research services that exists in the EU markets outside of the UK, according to CGA's chief executive, Jon Collins.

"We invested significantly to grow the business in 2006 and that has paid dividends in terms of revenue growth, market share, quality of data and quality of people. Many of our clients are pan-European businesses and have asked that we repeat that investment across Europe," he said.

"Our most difficult decision was to identify the countries for our first wave of European expansion as there is demand for our services in every market.

"Ultimately, we settled on Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands as they are territories where we have existing business partners who can supplement our data gathering, production and analysis with local insight.

"Our plan is to establish our services in these markets and then look to Scandinavia in 2009 and 2010, and Southern Europe in 2010 and 2011."