Leading provider of managed videoconferencing continues to grow as analysts predict industry will reach £619 million by 2017

UK-based BCS Global Networks Ltd is anticipating continued growth in 2013 after it secured several landmark achievements in 2012. The leading provider of managed videoconferencing, telepresence and visual collaboration enjoyed an exceptional year, winning multiple prestigious accolades, including a first time appearance in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 – straight in at number 15 –while steadily expanding its customer base and channel network.

Following unprecedented year on year growth since 2009, BCS Global believes it is witnessing a turning point in the acceptance of video collaboration as a mainstream business tool. “A few years ago video communication was only used in the boardroom, but increasingly it is cascading down throughout an entire organisation, in many cases to become not just a cost-saving method of communication, but also a key business differentiator,” says Clive Sawkins, BCS Global CEO.

Hamish Stevenson, founder of Oxford-based networking events and research company Fast Track, says: “BCS Global appeared on The Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 for the first time in 2012 and jumped straight in at number 15. If BCS Global can maintain its current trajectory it could earn a second consecutive appearance among Britain’s top-performing private technology companies in 2013.”

BCS Global also won Frost & Sullivan’s Best Practices Award ‘European Visual Collaboration Service Provider of the Year 2012’. Alexander Michael, Principal Analyst, ICT Consulting at Frost & Sullivan explained, “BCS Global has a strong value proposition in a young but fast expanding market – the global visual collaboration market is expected to reach £619 million by 2017. BCS Global’s managed services, uniquely supported by their own robust video exchange, removes the complexity of these technologies to deliver a world class user experience for customers. As a result, the company has great potential for even more stellar growth in the future.”

Completing the hat-trick, BCS Global was recognised by The New Europe magazine as one of the world’s 50 fastest growing companies and named Best Telepresence/ Video Conferencing Provider 2012. This was given in recognition “of excellence in the field of telepresence, taking into account customer satisfaction, as well as developing markets and competitiveness through technology solutions.”

The year’s achievements came hot on the heels of the 2011 European CEO award for Telepresence Managed Service Provider of the Year.

Sawkins is convinced that the outlook for 2013 is just as bright. “We have recently launched a new service, Virtual Presence B2B, one of the first Open Visual Communications Consortium (OVCC) compliant multi-network managed video services. Virtual Presence B2B is designed to break down existing barriers to the wider adoption of video collaboration between businesses of all sizes, even if located in various companies and served by different service providers. OVCC members have been working together over the past year to achieve this through interoperability agreements that create a blueprint for delivery of high-quality video collaboration – that connects any vendor, any network and any device, anywhere,” he says.

“Progress in evolving the technology and the fact that businesses can now use video collaboration as a managed service are major steps towards video collaboration replacing telephony as the everyday method of business communication.”