On the Line with Ditlev Bredahl of UK2.net

While remaining a strong competitor in the UK Web hosting market, CEO Ditlev Bredahl and the UK2.net team have been making huge strides in the United States. Bredahl tells us how his company will navigate through today’s tough economic climate and continue to flourish.

TH: We congratulate UK2 on a successful and eventful ten years in Web hosting. At what specific point in the ten-year history did you know that the company was going to be a leader and not merely a follower? Was there one early event in the company's history that may be considered a breakthrough?

DB: Thanks - yeah, 10 years makes us veterans I guess. UK2 has been through quite a few phases throughout the years. We were the first to actually automate the majority of our operation all the way back in 1998-99, and that put us up there at the top very fast. 2000-2002 were amazing years for us, turnover, growth and profits soared. In 2002-2005 the market became tougher and we honestly rested on our laurels and we didn't do enough in terms of renewing or improving our service. We lost the edge we had initially and our market share declined year on year.

Late 2005 we decided to turn the ship around - while we were still highly profitable we felt that we did not meet the full potential of the company, and we made a 3 year plan that would take back our leading position. 2006 was our clean up year - building a new organization, product range, website etc. Making us ready for 2007 that was our roll out year, where we invested heavily into marketing and almost doubled the company revenue. We also made a few acquisitions in 2007 moving us into the US. In 2008 we have focused more on consolidating the business, ensuring that some of the marketing money invested in 2007 came back to us, but also went through with a couple of acquisitions. 2008 has been a very good year for us, and while we do expect the financial environment to make 2009 tougher on the market in general, we foresee a great next year as well.

TH: UK2.net has made marvelous strides as of late with acquisitions of Stargate and midPhase in 2007 used to penetrate the US market and recently with the purchase of Dotable.com, gaining entry to the Australian marketplace. Obviously this is a significant international expansion strategy. Could you fill us in on the UK2's reasoning and long-term plans?

DB: We've never really had an acquisition strategy, no defined part of our funds allocated to acquisitive growth etc. But we have had a very specific growth strategy, and when the growth from acquisitions has been 'cheaper' than our organic efforts then we have gone ahead with it. UK2 has blessed us with a nice cash flow so we have been able to move on acquisitions without asking for external financing.

TH: There are some extremely tough challenges ahead with respect to the global financial crunch and recession in progress. Does UK2.net shift gears now and do some tightening or is it business as usual?

DB: I could talk about this for hours...I think the industry in general and UK2 particularly is in a good place to deal with the financial downturn.