Mar 5, 2009 : UK2 Moves Support Fuctions In-House

📅 March 5, 2009 - Web hosting provider UK2 Group (uk2group.com) announced on Thursday it plans to move all support functions in-house, despite the recession prompting many companies to turn to outsourcing.

As part of UK2 Group's strategy to leverage the best from its thirteen brands, the company is able to build an in-house support function which can now be rolled out across the UK2 Group.

Outsourcing support to less expensive countries has become a common practice in many industries, as the move can lead to cost reductions, greater flexibility and economies of scale.

Last month, budget web hosting provider Fasthosts announced it will soon replace its UK customer service team with offshore call centers in Romania and the Phillipines.

UK2 considered the risks involved with outsourcing, namely in the reduction of quality of service, loss of control of a key part of the business and decline in knowledge levels within the business.

After taking these factors into account, UK2 decided to move all UK2 Group support functions in-house, including a 40 employee out-sourced staff based in India..

Several other UK2 Group brands have already offered in-house support, the decision was made to move all UK2 Group support functions in-house.

"This is a big decision for us to make given the considerable economic uncertainty at the moment, but here at UK2 Group we are committed to putting our customers first," says Ditlev Bredahl, CEO of UK2 Group. "We have thirteen brands within the group, several have in-house support already and the others have various out-sourced support options so we have a lot of knowledge and experience. We believe that it is in the best interests of our customers to pool our support resources and provide a consolidated support function based in our Utah and Chicago offices in the US and London office in the UK."

The move to offering in-house support will also create more jobs within the UK2 Group, particularly in Utah.

The company has already established about 20 posts and expects this number to increase as more technical support and other support functions are moved.

UK2.net is the founding brand of the UK2 Group. The company has offered in-house support since the launch of its London based call center in spring 2007.

The company says that by consolidating support for all UK2 Group brands it is able to provide in-house online support for all customers because of the "convenient crossing of time zones and working hours."

UK2 Group provides domain name registration and web hosting services to global customers through its portfolio of hosting brands, which include UK2.net, midPhase, WestHost, 10TB.com, AN Hosting, Autica, Resell.biz, US2.net, WingSix, Supreme Support, Dotable, VI.net and the most recent addition, VPS.NET.

The new virtual private server cloud hosting system just entered the second phase of the beta trial, and is set to launch later this month.