Art of Cloud to provide jobs boost for Leeds as revenue soars

The Art of Cloud has seen its revenue rise from £361,000 to more than £750,000 since the start of the pandemic. This year the company aims to achieve a turnover of £1.5m while also increasing its staff numbers from 15 to 30.

Art of Cloud offers sales force consultancy services, which helps clients adopt a digital strategy by using cloud computing and customer relationship management software. The company’s clients include Rolls Royce, GHD and Formula-E.

The Horsforth-based business, which has at least 50 per cent of its clients in Yorkshire, said online customer interactions jumped from 42 per cent to 60 per cent in 2020.

Art of Cloud’s chief executive Ben Stevenson said: “People have become used to doing almost everything online, and this trend will only increase in 2021. By helping clients to implement cloud-based solutions, we support them in operating completely remotely from anywhere in the world.

“Servicing our clients remotely and allowing them to service customers online has been paramount to our success in 2020.”

He added: “One of our biggest challenges through Covid was that our team wasn’t getting together to bounce ideas off each other over a beer or a game of Mario Kart.

“The way we remedied that was to set up virtual coffee rooms through Google Meet, which you can dip in and out of as you would any other room, to have a chat with people in there or bounce an idea off someone.”

Mr Stevenson is also a community group leader for Leeds Salesforce Users, which is for business owners who are looking for an opportunity to get together, share advice and problems.

He said: “If companies don’t have an online presence, and are imagining their business will just return to normal when we’ve all been vaccinated, I would urge them to rethink and consider how they will leverage their online presence to entice those customers back.”

He added: “The way in which businesses communicate with their customers will change dramatically and companies are going to have to become a lot more savvy in the way they sell to and service their customers or they will lose them.”

Art of Cloud aims to continue its 100 per cent year-on-year growth by helping clients to boost their online presence.

Mr Stevenson said: “We’re one of the top sales force consultancies in the region. The majority of our business comes from word of mouth because we do such a good job for our existing clients.

“In 2021, we hope to keep earning excellent results and reviews from our clients while continuing to hire the top talent in the region and industry. But most of all we want to be back in the office. I want to have a party to celebrate our successes in 2020 and to thank my team for their efforts.”