Exeter IT firm celebrates five years of growth
Innovative IT firm Hosted Desktop UK (HDUK), a pioneer in cloud computing and winner of the 2015 Express & Echo Small Business of the Year Award, is celebrating five successful years since its launch in August 2010. With over 12 years’ experience in the IT industry and following rigorous research and development into cloud-based technology, young entrepreneur and HDUK MD, Adam Chetnik, founded what has become one of the most respected hosted desktop providers in the UK.
HDUK’s virtual desktop solutions were an instant success when the company first launched five years ago – the firm won Best Start Up in the Western Morning News Business Awards, and followed this with success at the Express & Echo Business Awards for Excellence in Customer Service. HDUK’s tailor-made hosted desktop system, designed to enable more flexible working by replacing the traditional, in-house IT infrastructure, quickly evolved from servicing the accounting sector and now offers secure and hassle-free IT solutions to the legal professions, estate agents, charities and more. With the help of Sales Director Steve Thorns, who benefits from over 25 years’ experience with IT software sales to the professional market, the company has continued to grow year-on-year, enjoying 70% growth on last year’s sales figures.
So what is the secret to HDUK’s success? Adam says: “It is not any one thing but a combination – from being cost-effective, which is particularly popular with our accountancy clients, to leading, not following the latest developments in IT trends. But more than anything, our customers trust us to keep their data safe and their systems running – taking away IT worries so they can focus on running their companies.
Adam continues: “At HDUK we are all about making customer satisfaction our top priority. We believe this is one of the main reasons we have experienced such phenomenal growth – which our 97.2% all time ticket satisfaction can attest to – and this has been recognised with regional awards for excellence in customer service. We created a bespoke star-rating system to help assess in real time how our customers think we are doing, and are delighted to report that 94% of our customers would recommend our services to another business.”
Alex Howarth of chartered accountants, Pearson Associates, can bear testament to the high level of customer care offered by the company, saying: “The team at HDUK are always calm, collected, professional, friendly and above all, responsive. They listen to our needs and we are really pleased we migrated our services to them four years ago – we simply haven’t looked back.”
Another key factor behind the company’s growth has been a real focus on innovation and branching out into new sectors. For example, Adam dedicated six months to the development and creation of a new control panel, which involved an extensive and thorough review and evaluation process with influential resellers and IT managers. Due to the new control panel element, the company has had more scope to develop into new sectors, including working with charities and estate agents. The control panel offers flexibility and control over the system, which is a key selling point.
HDUK now deals with over 3 million emails on a daily basis, services over 600 clients and supports in excess of 7,000 active users over our range of services. The firm has experienced such an increase in the demand for its innovative IT services that it has been able to take on four new staff members in the last year alone and now employs 16 people.
