Athwal started the Wednesfield-based business a decade ago to repair and sell second-hand mobile phones to Eastern Europe and the Third World, but today he is looking further afield.

"I have been in business for ten years and you need to change to survive," Athwal said. "We are moving into new areas but they are related to our core business, which is the mobile phone arena."

ECD has always repaired phones for local people and companies, but it is now expanding its market by rolling out its business across the UK.

"We thought why limit ourselves. A decade ago if I wanted a service I went to the Yellow Pages, but I can't remember the last time I picked it up. These days you type in what you are looking for into Google.

"So that is what we are working on at the moment. We are rolling out a whole host of websites to highlight the services that we give to the whole of the UK."

Indeed, two years ago the company processed 2,000 phones a week, but today up to 5,000 passes through the business in the same period.

Another example of the company diversifying includes it becoming an approved Apple service partner, meaning that it can repair iPhones, iPads and iPods. "Most people use hand-held products and no longer use a PC to check their emails, so we were quick to see where the industry was heading.

"It is a different industry but we still keep it quite close whereas five to ten years ago mobile pones were mobile phones and computers were computers, now there are convergences between the two."

To accommodate this growth Athwal has relocated ECD from its 4,000 sq ft premises to a 1 acre site.

"We are not currently utilising all of the space at the new site, but it is there and will allow us to take us through in the next ten years."

And he is hoping that this growth will come from developing his own software. ECD is trying to develop applications for the iPhone and Blackberries. "We will also be rolling that out to other companies that might want their own Apple applications."

Athwal has big plans and is confident that ECD's future is bright. "If things don't work then we change them and tweak them slightly. You have to adapt."

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