Region ‘needs to lead way in new IT revolution’

THE Government has the opportunity to kick-start the revival of South Yorkshire’s economy by encouraging investment in high tech IT services, according to industry experts.

The growth in cloud computing, which could see more companies access their data and software over the internet rather than via their own IT infrastructure, could create jobs at a time when the public sector is facing massive cutbacks.

Ian Weatherhogg, chief technical officer at Normanton-based Refractiv, described how business is being “rapidly transformed into a predominantly digital landscape”. He added the firm’s growth plans are “firmly” focused on cloud services, and said: “Yorkshire’s businesses need to be at the forefront of this new IT era in order to compete effectively both in the UK and overseas.”

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A move to cloud computing will require an increase in capacity, said James Wilson, a manager at Creative Sheffield. He said: “Sheffield city region is well placed for that sort of thing.

“It’s certainly something we are trying to do: to position ourselves to be able to take hold of those opportunities as and when those large scale data centres are developed.”

Also on the shift to cloud computing, Lee Strafford, private sector board member on Sheffield City Region LEP and founder of broadband provider Plusnet, said there is an opportunity for the government to “kick start economic growth in this area, which, if properly structured, will support continued economic growth by creating efficiencies in the public and private sectors going forwards”.

Refractiv is joined by Propalms, Stickyeyes, Epiphany Solutions and Cloud2 in the list of key players within the creative and digital sector in our region. Zoo Digital, Technophobia and learndirect are also front runners.

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Cloud2, which has offices in Bradford, Hull and North Ferriby, was formed in 2008 out of a desire to provide dedicated SharePoint healthcare software services. It plans to grow their business six-fold over the next five years.

York-based Propalms, which is a provider of secure remote access services, is also looking to grow with plans to open operational sales and technical offices in both the USA and Japan. Meanwhile, Leeds-based Stickyeyes counts itself among the top ten internet marketing agencies in the UK, with a turnover of £12.5m and 68 staff. The company was launched in 1998, at a time when the internet was still emerging as a marketing channel.

Digital marketing agency Epiphany Solutions, which is also Leeds based, is another rising star, which has enjoyed recent expansion. Its client base includes Savills, CBI and Ventura.

Marian Smith, marketing manager at Techmesh, which supports IT and telecoms businesses, said: “There are a lot of exciting, innovative digital companies in our region, those involved in internet provision and related activities are expanding.”

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But Ajaz Ahmed, who founded internet service provider Freeserve in 1998, said the Americans are dominating the internet sector and there is a lack of innovation within the UK in this area. He said: “If you look at the global top 100 the only British website in there is the BBC, which is a publicly funded website. We are not producing enough companies that are going on to become global players.

“We haven’t got anybody to rival Google, Facebook or Twitter. When you look at the region, we’ve got plenty of businesses who build websites, we’ve got plenty of companies who provide SEO services but there’s no innovation there.”

Mr Ahmed came up with the idea of Freeserve while he was working at PC World in Leeds, and managed to persuade the CEO of its owner, Dixons, to launch it. Yorkshire multi-millionaire and internet entrepreneur Peter Wilkinson, who is chief executive of InTechnology, an IT and network services firm he founded in 1983, was also involved in Freeserve’s launch. In three months, Freeserve became the largest internet service provider in the country.

Nine months later, it floated and at its peak was worth £9bn.

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