AYRSHIRE-BASED Visimetrics is to supply its digital CCTV systems to more than 9000 petrol service stations across Europe in a deal that will raise its revenues by in excess of pounds-1 million a year.
The company has been brought on board as part of SDA Protec's three-year contract to provide CCTV equipment and expertise to oil major ExxonMobil.
The contract, which is Visimetrics's largest on the Continent to date, comes as the manufacturer is deep in talks with senior officials with Homeland Security in the US.
Visimetrics recently set up operations in Colorado Springs to promote and manufacture one of its CCTV technologies that allows shops, banks and high-security sites to record in real-time crime and critical events with DVD image quality that can be used as evidence in courts.
Barry Rooney, managing director of Visimetrics, said:
"The US is a phenomenal market. We are in discussions with Homeland Security. We're looking at US requirements for security be it military bases, docks or airports. There is a lot of money being made available through Washington."
Rooney said that Visimetrics's long-standing relationship with the UK military and police forces had opened doors for the company in the US.
Visimetrics, which employs 47 people directly and indirectly in Ayrshire and Colorado Springs, develops and supplies technology for UK prisons, military bases, and global corporations like IBM, Kellogg's, Hewlett Packard and Levi.
Annual turnover has reached pounds-4m and the company is completely self-sustaining.
Rooney hopes to boost market share in Britain from 14-per cent to 20-per cent in the next 12 months.
He explained: "We specialise in digital surveillance. About 80-per cent of current CCTV coverage is analogue using traditional VCR tapes. There is a vast market for replacing these."
Retailers are increasingly turning to digital CCTV to deal with shoplifters and provide evidence to obtain antisocial behaviour orders.
He said: "With the old way of recording, analogue video footage could be altered. Our digital footage can't be altered without us knowing exactly who has done it and when it was done."
Rooney added that the latest deal to have its digital evidence recorder systems deployed in petrol service stations was also a breakthrough into a new type of customer and boosted its push into Europe.
Visimetrics has traditionally worked mainly with high street banks, retail outlets, airports and military bases in Europe.
Equipment has already been installed in eight trial petrol service station sites in the UK, four in Ireland and work has begun in a further 14 European countries.
Rooney is in talks with other service station operators over similar deals.
He added that a 10-strong team of engineers was currently developing new patented surveillance products that Visimetrics would roll out in the coming months.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article