A PLYMOUTH business has landed a six-figure deal which could eventually see it recruit an additional 100 staff to work from home fielding emergency calls for an oil giant's tanker fleet.
teleBIZZ, based at Plympton, has won a contract to ad as the emergency response centre for the global fleet of ships run by BP, one of the worlds leading oil companies.
The firm, which is owned and run by Gillie Scherr and her husband Nick Lunn, is now planning to establish a network of home-based remote workers.
Using the latest broadband technology, they will provide an immediate response service which will operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
When it becomes fully operational later this year, possibly as early as September, the centre is initially expected to employ 16 trained staff for the BP contract alone.
However, it is hoped this will be only the start of a home-based service which could ultimately create 100 jobs.
The initiative has received the support of Broadband4Devon, the multi-million-pound public and private-sector broadband partnership in which telecoms firm BT is a major partner.
Today Broadband4Devon confirmed that it would be making its biggest-ever subsidy award to teleBIZZ.
The award - valued at approximately £25,000 will aid a rapid expansion of the home scheme.
Gillie Scherr said: "the winning of this contract is a fantastic victory not only for teleBIZZ, but also for the South West and technology.
"It shows that high-speed broadband technology can be used to create highly-skilled jobs in places where such initiatives would have been inconceivable just a few years ago. The latest computer technology, supported by a sophisticated virtual IP (internet protocol) network, will ensure that our people will have all the facilities they need at their fingertips to ensure they a first-class job.
"The competition for this contract was intense. We imagine that most of the companies bidding for contract were much bigger than us, but our use of remote home-based workers to support the activities our Plymouth call centre proved huge advantage.
“The client was determined the emergency response should have a back-up for every eventuality. A virtual response centre of the type we're planning is by its very nature resilient, because widely-dispersed team of remote workers can't all be affected by single incident, such as a major power cut in our call centre."
teleBIZZ began offering a limited level of support for BP’s emergency calls several years ago.
BP moves about 220 million tonnes of crude oil and petroleum products per year, about five per cent seaborne oil movements.
It has its own fleet of 73 vessels and at any given time has a further 200 ships on charter.
Jim Thornborough, shipping crisis management and emergency response advisor for BP, said: "teleBIZZ is an important response partner to BP, which relies on its professional call centre service to expedite an efficient response of the BP regional response team for Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
"They were awarded the contract through a competitive bid process.
BP assessed both the commercial and technical aspects of several proposals before awarding the contract to teleBIZZ.
"We were very pleased with the quality of their bid and are confident they will meet our expectations."
John Horns, project director for Broadband4Devon; said: “We are delighted to be working with teleBIZZ on this very exciting initiative. We will be providing technical advice as well as financial assistance. There can be no better example of how broadband technology is overcoming 'the disadvantages posed by remote locations.
"A person sitting in a rose-covered Devon cottage could be playing a vital role in an emergency just as easily as somebody sitting in a control centre in a major city.â€