Yorkshire web hosting firm benefits from online demand with “substantial” growth

A York website hosting firm has announced that it has seen its best ever financial year since launching more than a decade ago.

York-based managed website hosting company, HA, has recorded its best financial year since it was first established in 2008.

The company has seen “substantial” growth over the last 12 months, including a 14 per cent increase in turnover, as more and more businesses move online to ensure their survival in the current climate.

Founded by Nick Bascombe-Fox, HA specialises in fully managed hosting, providing 24/7 support to ensure its managed customer websites and digital applications are running efficiently and securely.

One of the largest areas of growth for HA over the last year has been e-commerce sites. It says that retail has been one of the hardest hit sectors during the pandemic and, as a result, many small businesses have found it essential to move their offering online in order to withstand the restrictions.

Nick Bascombe-Fox, CTO, commented: “The last year has been one of the busiest but most interesting years I’ve seen since we set up 13 years ago.

“The pandemic has meant we’ve seen a real shift in how people are behaving online. As a small business, to survive in the current climate you have to have an online presence. Not only do you need a website, but it also needs to run quickly and efficiently, be secure and always on.

“With increasing online competition, even if your website is down for just a few hours it can have significant consequences for your business.

“At HA, we provide a fully managed hosting service where our clients only speak to support engineers, which means, rather than passing the technical responsibility to our clients, our dedicated team take on that role to ensure that online businesses are kept up and running.”

To support the delivery of the increased workload, HA, has recently recruited new members of staff who have all joined the team in the last three months.