NO sooner had Saville Audio Visual, of Millfield Lane, Nether Poppleton, submitted its entry for the Evening Press Business of the Year Awards when it found itself playing a major role in international preparations in the aftermath of the U.S. terrorist atrocities.

Demand for its video conferencing services soared as repercussions on international business travel grew.

Already the York company's team in London Docklands has supplied compact, portable video-conference units to newscasters for urgent shipment to Afghanistan.

Bob Sansoni, Saville's video-conferencing product manager, said: "Equipment has becoming progressively less expensive and is now very easy to use.

"Improvements in technology and the signal-carrying capacity of high-speed ISDN lines have brought about dramatic improvements in picture and sound quality - and right now the demand is mushrooming."

The ability to adapt and thrive is clearly one of the reasons why Saville has entered our Growth Business of the Year category.

Originally pharmacists, the business was owned by four generations of the Saville family. It diversified into professional AV in the early 1970s and began to develop a network of regional centres which intensified with a management buy-out in 1997.

Since then Saville has twice won the Audio Visual Dealer of the Year and this year not only scooped the IPR CREAM award for best B-to-B marketing and PR, but also was voted National Hire Company of the Year and earned the Royal Mail-sponsored award for best B-to-B catalogue.

Saville's objectives for the current trading year include increasing turnover by 16 per cent to £30 million and expanding the workforce by ten per cent to more than 300.

A net profit of more than £1 million is forecast for the first time for this financial year.