The Vitec Group’s RF Extreme has announced the creation of a European regional office located in the United Kingdom.
“We created the European regional office to provide a dedicated UK-based sales and service facility,” says RF Extreme President, Stephen Shpock. “Although the office will be used primarily for EMEA customers, it will also provide service support for customers in Asia (where there are some hours in the working day that overlap).”
The new RF Extreme regional office shares space with the Vitec group’s ‘Broadcast Systems’ division, Camera Dynamics Ltd, in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. The location provides dedicated areas for sales and administration and is in the process of equipping a technical area for product testing and servicing, product training, product acceptance and demonstration.
“We are in a very fortunate position of being able to utilise many resources from the existing Vitec facility including HR, administrative and accounts functions, dispatch, goods inwards, conference rooms, video conferencing facilities, and much more,” continues Shpock. “This keeps us lean and focused solely on the task at hand – sales, sales support and customer technical support/service. Another benefit of utilising an existing Vitec location is that we were up and running in less than a week from first arriving on-site.”
A further synergistic benefit is the global rollout of the latest IFS Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system across all Vitec divisions. Both the Vitec Broadcast Systems and RF Extreme divisions are well into the process of transferring their existing MRP and accounts functions to the IFS system. Once complete, tasks such as ordering spare parts, logistics, invoicing and data tracking will be standardised across both companies, greatly improving the efficiency of the service function in particular.
“We are now able to provide our European customers with confidence that they are buying products which can be supported locally using a wide variety of resources rather than just one or two locations in the US,” adds Shpock. “For European customers in particular, returning products to the United States for repair can be a long, time-consuming process. By providing a European-based service centre, RF Extreme now has the ability to offer a faster turn-around with no customs concerns.”
As Director of International Sales for RF Extreme, Simon Clifford is now overseeing the new European regional office.
