In an interim management statement posted today, the company says ICM’s perfomance has “continued to impact trading during the period” following “significant cost reduction actions which were undertaken at the end of the last financial year.”

These actions included axing ICM Group’s Justin Sampson as chairman, along with other redundancies, a review of ICM’s data collection processes, reflecting the switch in demand away from telephone-based interviewing to online and mobile techniques, and a reduction in property and infrastructure costs through co-location.

In its statement Creston says that “management will continue to review the business closely to ensure costs remain aligned to performance as revenue increases again.” On the new focus on developing new research technologies and digital platfoms, the company says it “is creating good new business opportuniites, and our new healthcare-focused start-up company has added three new clients since the start of the new year.”

Like-for-like revenues for the first quarter were down just under 7% compared to the same period in 2011 overall. Don Elgie (pictured) is Creston group chief executive.