Marks 23 consecutive quarters of profitability
PITTSBURGH, Oct. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Building on earlier announcements
this year that Vocollect reached $100 million (USD) in sales in 2006 (a
voice industry first), opened an office in Japan and continued to expand
Vocollect Voice for multiple manufacturers' devices throughout 2007, today
Vocollect announced the kick-off of a yearlong celebration marking its 20th
anniversary.
"Roger Byford and Larry Sweeney founded Vocollect with a vision of
creating dedicated voice products to dramatically improve mobile work,"
said Chief Executive Officer Jack LeVan. "Two decades of continuous
innovation and product improvement, honed by intense and extensive end user
experience, have proven them right."
Vocollect has invested a minimum 15 percent of revenue in research and
development on an annual basis since its inception in 1987. The private
company is completely self-funded, investing nearly $20 million into
product development activity in 2006 alone. Since 2001, Vocollect has
enjoyed 23 consecutive quarters of profitability. And not at the expense of
growth -- for the year ended June 30, revenues were up more than 20 percent
over that of the previous year.
"Our product portfolio, application expertise and real-world experience
through 20 years of providing Vocollect Voice to multiple industries are
unparalleled in bringing the power of voice to mobile workers," said LeVan.
"This year is exciting as we've extended the quality performance of
Vocollect Voice onto several multi-function devices, one of our long-term
strategic initiatives for opening and expanding our global market."
"This is an exciting time in the global supply chain arena, as
companies find new approaches for voice beyond order selection that fully
maximize their return on investment. Many of our end customers now look at
Vocollect Voice as a fundamental element of lean distribution. And from
there, we see a natural progression into lean manufacturing. Wherever
mobile work depends upon accessing data easily and using it accurately,
voice creates enormous value, as well as end user satisfaction and safety,"
LeVan said.
Like many successful businesses, Vocollect started small -- with a
lofty dream of combining sophisticated voice recognition with lightweight
portability for the manufacturing sector. Several things happened in the
1990s to catapult the company forward. In 1996, the company created the
first one- piece, self-contained voice wearable computer, which brought
workers the "hands-free" ability to easily select products from
distribution center (DC) shelves instead of having to continually handle a
cumbersome device. Shortly thereafter, a major hardware chain came to
Vocollect seeking help with order selection in its DC operations. With that
success came the epiphany for Byford, today the chief operating officer of
Vocollect, and his growing team that the ideal application for voice was in
the distribution arena. This new market focus, combined with the ability to
keep innovating voice devices that are smaller and lighter, yet more
powerful and rugged, put the company on a dramatic upswing and spawned an
entirely new industry of voice applications to improve accuracy,
productivity, safety and job satisfaction for hundreds of thousands of
workers across the global supply chain.
Over the last two decades, Vocollect has evolved from doing business
primarily in Pennsylvania to serving end customers on every continent
except Antarctica. In just five years, its European operation has grown to
account for more than one-third of global sales revenue. The company also
continues to expand its reach into Latin America and Asia, and to enter new
markets such as its foray into healthcare in 2006 through its wholly-owned
subsidiary, Vocollect Healthcare Systems.
"Our tagline for this anniversary, 'Voicing our appreciation for 20
great years,' communicates to our employees, customers, partners, investors
and suppliers alike how much we have valued their collaboration and support
along the way," said LeVan. "We'll continue to celebrate this important
milestone from now into next year, culminating next April in Pittsburgh at
Accel '08, our first global conference for end customers," said LeVan.
About Vocollect
Since 1987, Vocollect, Inc. has delivered proven performance
improvements in productivity, accuracy, cost reduction and worker
satisfaction for mobile employees. Vocollect Voice literally talks people
through their daily tasks, replacing cumbersome lists and traditional data
capture methods with hands- free, personal voice dialogs. Through a premier
global network of certified resellers and supply chain performance experts,
hundreds of thousands of people on six continents use Vocollect Voice to
improve work every day. Vocollect is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa.,
U.S.A., and supports its clients and resellers through offices in the
Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit http://www.vocollect.com.
Vocollect(R) and Vocollect Voice(R) are registered trademarks of Vocollect,
Inc. All rights reserved.
SOURCE Vocollect, Inc.
 back to top
Related links:
http://www.vocollect.com
CONTACT:
Company, Susan Muttart of Vocollect, Inc.,
+1-412-349-2543, scmuttart@vocollect.com; or Media, Andrea
Goodall of Padilla Speer Beardsley, +1-612-455-1702,
afiner@psbpr.com, for Vocollect, Inc.
|
