Long-term investment in R&D and consistently outstanding customer support are driving explosive growth at leading British hosting provider UKFast, as the firm today declares an 18% organic increase in revenue in 2017.
Revenue of £47m represents an increase of more than £7m on the previous year, bolstered by a massive 30% growth in the firm’s cloud offering, which now accounts for more than 43% of overall revenue. A number of significant contract wins with large enterprises helped private cloud revenue in particular to grow by 40%.
Launched in 2013, UKFast’s flagship eCloud range offers public, hybrid and private cloud solutions, as well as cloud desktops; drag and drop vault storage; and flexible, OpenStack development space.
Founder and CEO Lawrence Jones MBE said: “We place huge focus on innovation and it’s clearly paying off. Not only within the applications we’ve built to run the business like the telephone system, launch platforms and CRM software, but also the range of innovative products we’re launching.
“eCloud has grown at such an amazing rate because users are realising the benefits of the level of automation we’ve built into the platform and they’re expanding their solutions. We’re continuing this focus on innovation and expanding our R&D team even further, rather than resting on our laurels.”
With the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) placing increased focus on data privacy and security, Jones says UK-based hosting firms are at an advantage.
“Businesses and consumers understand the importance of hosting their data securely and within the UK.
“UKFast offers a really strong alternative to some of the giant cloud providers. Having UK data centres is extremely important. Our network and infrastructure are incredibly closely monitored and we guarantee that data won’t be held outside the UK.”
UKFast has enjoyed 18 consecutive years of double-digit growth and recently doubled the size of its campus HQ in Manchester.
Jones added: “I’m really proud of the team. This type of growth demonstrates our commitment to our customers and to delivering innovation to help them grow faster than their competitors.
“The best thing about our service is that you can pick up the telephone and we’re here for you. It’s about being helpful and being supportive as much as is humanly possible, and our clients really respond to that.”
The portfolio of businesses owned by Lawrence and Gail Jones now employs more than 450 people across a number of brands, including building company UKFast Space, headhunting firm Mysort, technology magazine BusinessCloud and cybersecurity and ethical hacking specialists Secarma.
