Speakerbus : Talking business
Published : September 2006
Its market-leading voice, video and conferencing products have supported the corporate communications sector since the 1980s. Speakerbus continues to adapt to meet a changing market, as Richard Trubger told Bernie Sheehan
Speakerbus started out in the financial world where split-second responses are crucial. Today, 22 years later, customers in 25 countries around the world use its products and services to deliver the highest quality voice and video in real-time, with instant connectivity across global networks.
“We’re typically selling into the finance markets – our digital high-tech products are used in dealing and trading, for example. There are also security and defence applications. At the lower-tech end, our lower cost analogue-based products are used in car parks, hotels, prisons – in fact anywhere where there are small, door-entry systems,” explained operations director Richard Trubger.
Speakerbus’s ‘Hoot n Holler’ networks, for example, provide instant audio-conferencing across wide-area voice networks. They are used in applications ranging from global financial trading and linking emergency response units to providing instant or continuous access to live broadcasts – such as Reuters news or a pre-recorded or live corporate message. The company also offers a range of intercom, video and voice conferencing, and video remote-surveillance products. Its SB 534 Desktop Video Solution, for example, won a Millennium Product Award from the British Design Council.
In the UK, Speakerbus is based at Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, where it employs 90 staff and has a £10 million annual turnover. It also has sites around the world. Over the years the company has developed a reputation for listening to customers’ needs and providing solutions. “One of our customers, a bank which was replacing an existing voice network with one of our IP-based products, had some specific enterprise network management requirements that couldn’t be met with off-the-shelf tools,” said Trubger. “Working closely with the customer’s engineering team, we introduced a multi-level conference capability, featuring an ‘ad hoc’ function where two people could have a point-to-point discussion and the initiator can introduce more people as necessary rather than it being a pre-ordained, pre-set capability.” At a strategic level, Speakerbus’s customer-focused product strategy is based on a three-year technology development horizon. “We share our roadmap plans in confidence and it means we can react to the constant change in market requirements.”
This willingness to adapt has helped Speakerbus become a leading provider of voice and video mission-critical communications. An ambitious programme of new products is planned over the next two years. “In the last 12 months we’ve invested £1.2 million in R&D – it’s at the core of what we do,” said Trubger. “We took the decision to focus on the developing market for IP-based communication and our next generation of products will give us genuine IP capability – allowing our customers to benefit from the lower operating costs and increased resiliency that this technology allows.”
Speakerbus plans to increase turnover by 100 per cent in the next five years. “As well as introducing new products that will allow us to enter new markets, we’ve invested in our manufacturing infrastructure to support the planned expansion,” continued Trubger. “We subcontract the capital intensive manufacturing processes and concentrate on a highly reactive final assembly and rigorous product testing here.
“We’ve put in a kanban production line in the last couple of years that can easily cope with a 100 per cent increase in throughput and we’re working closely with our sub-contractors to ensure they too are ready to meet our increased demands.”
Although Speakerbus is not an energy-intensive manufacturer, given the continuing trend of rising fuel costs, it is educating staff on the importance of energy conservation. On a wider front, all new products feature a more efficient design to reduce energy consumption. Another new development is the investment in JTAG boundary scan technology – a method for testing interconnects on printed circuit boards inside an integrated circuit. “It produces additional functionality,” said Trubger. “You can run a boundary scan on an IC or a group of ICs and they can report back on their own connectivity.”
The biggest challenge facing Speakerbus is moving from independent systems that it directly designs, builds and supports, to supplying components of a much larger overall infrastructure. “This is typical of the migration from digital to IP-based technology, where the developer or manufacturer no longer has to create the infrastructure, but must work with the correct partners to guarantee the correct delivery of the service,” said Trubger. “We’re meeting these opportunities by actively engaging with carefully selected partners for telephony, networking and product distribution and resale in each of our markets. We can exploit the increased market access as well as delivering our own value-added services alongside the actual product. All of these actions are currently underway – 2007 is going to be an exciting year.”