Spring Group has begun its European expansion by opening an office in Rome.

The opening comes as the IT specialist seeks to reach its goal of being a £1bn turnover business by 2009.

The office will be managed by Marco Guarno, a former country manager for Ajilon, part of the Adecco Group, and comes about after a telecoms client asked Spring to set up in Italy. "We're looking to expand where there's customer opportunities," said Peter Searle, Spring chief executive.

Also joining the company is Aidan Anglin, former managing director of engineering specialist MSB, who will head up the technology staffing side of the business. Both men joined on 2 April.

Searle told Recruiter in an exclusive interview that giving the sales force more opportunity to sell was key to increasing turnover.

"We're putting career ladders in place, whereby if you reach a certain target, you have the right to go and ask for promotion," said Searle.

He added that the company was also placing greater focus on training and development, with the company's academy in Birmingham taking in potential employees who are inducted onto modular courses before joining the sales team.

Furthermore, Searle claimed that the company had made a 75% cost saving by building recruitment teams internally, rather than using rec-to-rec agencies.

"A lot of whether we will succeed in reaching our target depends on whether we are able to find the right staff at the right time," Searle revealed.

"If the market remains strong, I'm confident we can do it."