Communication can be expensive, as can travelling to and from work. For many businesses, taking a look at their monthly landline phone bill can make their eyes water, as they find that talking to a client over the phone cost them several pounds for half an hour. As for arranging meetings with clients, that can sometimes involve a lot of travel, which costs money. One cost-effective solution to both problems is conference calling, which is far cheaper than spending hundreds or thousands each year on petrol or landline phone calls.
Conference calling is also much easier to do, and can enable employees who live several miles away from the office to work from home, meaning that it saves all involved time as well as money. More and more businesses are realising that conference calling can help their business in a number of ways, and one of the UK’s leading providers of conferencing solutions has found that demand for its services has helped it to grow considerably of late.
Powwow Now, in recognition of its growth, received a £2.5m loan from a government scheme courtesy of Barclays to help finance the takeover of a rival company. The loan, which was approved as part of the National Loan Guarantee Scheme, also came with expert advice from the banking giant, which seems to have faith in what Powwow now do and their ability to follow up its success to date. In 2011, they reported sales of £7.5m and sales growth of an astonishing 30%, and look set to continue in the same vein.
Optimism for the future isn’t in short supply, but Powwow now have one eye on the immediate future and new conferencing technology. Simon Curry, Powwow now’s chief executive who joined the company from BT Global Services last year said that they were looking into further developments of its video and audio technology:
“Although we already have a significant share of the audio market, we’re also hoping to make moves into the collaboration market, and hope that, by developing high-definition video and audio technology, we can make sure that Powwow now is even more successful in the future than it is today.”
