Chippenham-based specialist IT firm SciSys has landed a £1.55m contract to supply the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) with its world-beating ‘cloud-hosted’ radio technology.
The two-and-a-half year contract is the latest secured by the firm as it continues to bounce back from serious problems with a major fixed-price contract last year. 
The crisis pushed annual profits down by 80% at SciSys, which develops complex IT projects for clients in sectors such as space, defence and the media.
The SABC contract, secured by SciSys’ media & broadcast division, will put the firm’s dira! radio production and playout system into SABC’s pan-South African broadcast operation.
The dira! product will be rolled out to SABC’s six Johannesburg radio networks as well as to 10 larger and five smaller regional sites replacing other providers’ systems.
SciSys’ dira! product was last year chosen for the supplier for the Second Large Scale Framework Agreement by the BBC across its radio divisions. dira! incorporates next-generation technology to enable ‘cloud-hosted’ radio production and infrastructure.
SciSys CEO Klaus Heidrich said: “The win of a landmark project with one of Africa’s most valued broadcasters is a great achievement for SCISYS and its Media & Broadcast division which will certainly help to expand our business activities in international markets.”
SciSys employs nearly 450 staff across its offices in Chippenham, Bristol, Leicester and Reading and two in Germany. Its clients are predominantly blue-chip and public sector organisations and include the Environment Agency, the Ministry of Defence, Airbus Defence & Space, Vodafone, the European Space Agency, Eumetsat and the BBC.
