The streamlined operations of a modern-day high-function organization depend almost entirely on effective communication. Both internal and external communications play a significant role in the success of a company.
Corporate communication is not just essential to create a brand identity and communicate with internal and external audiences to maintain a positive company image in the industry but also to bridge the gap between employees and the management.
The evolution of technology has enabled corporates to efficiently leverage audiovisual technology to ensure smooth communication within organizations. One of the companies that provide for this need is SPOR Group, which specializes in bringing innovative workplace solutions that empower companies to transform the way they collaborate and communicate on a global stage.
SPOR Group was Co-founded by Chris Gore, the Director, and Chris Spence, the Sales Director of the company, with an aim to deliver top customer service that it has been displaying since its inception.
Setting Industry Benchmarks
SPOR Group is a London-based workplace technology company that specializes in video conference and collaboration technology. The company’s operations are based across the North and South UK with strategic partnerships globally located for its clients.
The company specializes in designing and delivering simple, scalable workplace solutions that can be deployed across multiple offices for its clients ensuring they have the same look and feel across each location. This, in turn, ascertains that the users are totally at ease with their workplace technology as each location is the same.
Foundational Values
Upon asking Chris about SPOR Group’s core values of operations, he listed out the following, “Our culture is based on a few simple values.
Integrity: We want to deliver the best possible solution to our clients in a way that delivers them a solution that matches their requirements exactly. As an agile company, we place integrity at the forefront of everything we do. An honest, open dialogue with our clients is the best way to understand the needs of that client, which in turn allows us to work much more closely on delivering an excellent project.”
“People: Human – Not superhuman. We put real people at the center of everything that we do. We pride ourselves on putting the customer first and guiding their technology choices based entirely on their needs. We support equality and human rights for everyone.”
“Planet: The planet is our playground. We are proud to design workplace solutions that allow capability for organizations to reduce their carbon footprint. Our innovative designs and installations minimize the environmental impact of modern technology.”
“Product: Above anything else, we pride ourselves on providing a best-in-class service for our clients. We work with leading global manufacturers to ensure that the products we suggest are best in class and that our exceptional customer service is second to none.”
“SPOR is an owner-managed business that is small enough to work really closely with its clients for their needs but big enough to be able to deliver globally using its partner network. The group has worked with some of the largest FTSE 50 companies over the years, and that experience allows it to speak with confidence about what works and what does not work when it comes to multi-site technology deployments”
“SPOR Group prides itself not on being a supplier but given that we are relatively small in this space, that allows us to be an extension to our client’s own internal IT teams,” Chris added.
Eminent Leadership
Chris Gore – Served for 13 years in the British Military, on a number of tours before completing his MBA during his final couple of years. Upon completion of his MBA, Chris left the military and started working for a global AV integrator looking after some of the world’s biggest companies and their AV deployments. It was during this time that Chris Gore met Chris Spence, and the idea of SPOR was born.
The Chris(s) were frustrated with large integration companies and wanted to provide a solution to their clients which was a little more personal and forward-thinking. This was during a time that large AV deployments were extremely costly and complicated. The Chris(s) saw a way to be able to deliver a product which the users found simple to use, and the deployment could be easily rolled out across multiple locations.
As an advice to budding entrepreneurs who wish to venture into the audiovisual space, Chris quotes, “Surround yourself with the best people. You are only as good as the people that you work with.”
Leveraging Technology
Technology is only going to get more and more advanced. Users are not afraid of using technology anymore, given that they have been in lockdown and dialing into video calls for the past two years. As a result of that, SPOR Group has had a swift acceleration to digital transformation, and workplaces are starting to realize that more advanced technology can be a real asset to their company.
Chris quotes, “At the moment, I can still see that users are physically dialing into their meetings, but I think it’s only a matter of time before we start using Alexa-type technology to start our workplace meetings.”
“We are seeing wider use of AI with facial recognition for meeting participants, which can be used to collect data for clients. This data can be utilized to drive decision-making processes for effective collaboration technology deployments across organizations. From an audio perspective, we are seeing recording devices cut out background noise and amplify a speaker’s voice resulting in a unique user-focused scenario specifically targeting the most effective output from workplace meetings.”
SPOR is a smaller company that is at the forefront of deploying this technology. The company is able to easily and quickly show agility with regards to its offerings to its clients and is perfectly positioned to provide innovative technologies which can be easily deployed.
Overcoming Adversities
Talking about all the challenges that the company faced due to the rise of COVID-19 and how the company surpassed all of those, Chris said, “Like all companies, one of the biggest challenges we faced was trying to change our mindset from on-site meetings to completely remote meetings. As a company that specializes in multi-site AV rollouts, we had to change our approach to provide our clients with a need for their current requirements. That need was to provide the ability for clients to work from home whilst trying to mitigate disruption to their current working lives.”
He added, “We arranged for all of our employees to work 100% from home during this time and had regular well-being meetings with the team. The challenge we have with 100% working from home is that our staff can often struggle to differentiate work life from home life. It’s important to ensure that our staff continues to have a work-life balance and to continue to have an environment where they are mentally happy and professionally productive.”
Looking Ahead
While expressing his thoughts on the future of SPOR Group and scaling its offerings, Chris said, “We are continuing to add to our already very talented team. As we continue to work closer and closer to our clients, we need to ensure that we are adding the best people to our organization who match our culture. We will be continuing to try to innovate within our space.”
Demonstrating Excellence
- “SPOR was an excellent company to work with. They completed the necessary site surveys and system planning phase quickly, and their engineers were professional, efficient, and courteous and worked hard to accommodate some last-minute requests during the installation phase. We are pleased with the end result and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to others.” – Adham Nicola, NHS Trust
- “Acrisure Re has always been quite traditional in its approach to the office, and there will always be important for insurance companies to hold some face-to-face meetings. However, following the pandemic, we are embracing flexible working. SPOR has helped make sure employees can interact in quality ways and stay connected easily, wherever they are working.” – LAURA YARNALL, OFFICE MANAGER, ACRISURE RE
