Milan, 22 March 2018 – The web hosting and cloud computing markets are undergoing certain changes, as the technological progress evolves and customer expectations shift. It is anticipated that only companies capable of adapting their businesses to the constantly changing customer needs will survive in the long run.
We have discussed the future of the mass web hosting market and some other interesting topics with the CEO of DHH, Uroš Čimžar. DHH is one of the leading tech companies that are present in Web Hosting, SaaS and Cloud Computing sectors in Southern Europe.
How did DHH start the year? Were there any significant events or news that took place during the first two months of 2018?
Uroš Čimžar: “I am quite happy with how DHH started the year. We have started to follow the green light with the involvement of the Artera brand. DHH has set up a turnaround project and a product portfolio for this brand back in 2017, and overall, it is progressing quite nicely.
There is also a quite good initial reaction to the products. Our assumptions have been positively proved, as now we start to see the results. This would be one of the key highlights of this year.
In addition, the Tophost brand is still showing the results of turnaround we did last year. As a matter of fact, Tophost is performing really well so far in 2018.
As for the other brands, things are progressing according to plans.”
How did 2017 go for the DHH? Please walk me through some of the most important highlights of 2017.
Uroš Čimžar: “During 2017, our team in Croatia was working very hard to integrate the team and acquired customers of Studio4Web, especially aslooking back at 2016, we have also acquired InfoNet. Thus, I am very happy that the Croatian DHH team is able to keep up the aggressive pace of acquisition.
Furthermore, looking into the Serbian market, we are very happy with the growth in customer numbers. We are steadily increasing the market share there.
Slovenian team has shown a better growth than expected. What is notable is that this is pure organic growth.
In general, 2017 was a really good year for DHH, considering the fact that we are also a very young company.”
As you mentioned, back in May 2017, DHH has acquired Artera. Could you tell me what has been changed in terms of the business focus for the brand? Was there any re-structuring for Artera?
Uroš Čimžar: “Let’s say we have made the brand more focused. Artera is the team with a lot of knowledge, and they have been accepting each and every challenge that appeared on their way. However, this practice proved itself somewhat unsustainable in the long term, since the focus of the company became relatively spread out.
Together with Artera team, we have carried out several workshops in the second half of the last year. We also have worked on narrowing down the focus of the brand. For instance, we have stopped doing the agency projects.
In my opinion, Artera holds a unique set of expertize in the market, while being one of the most prospective players in the Italian market. We have utilized this opportunity and used the strengths to build the new product portfolio. As a matter of fact, the new website of Artera will already go live very soon.”
The press release from December 2017 states that DHH decided to set up a fully owned new subsidiary in Croatia focused on managed hosting. Could you tell me more about this?
Uroš Čimžar: “Yes, this was one of the first opportunities DHH identified in Plus Hosting and we were working hard to make this happen. The business line of managed hosting had the opportunity to grow really fast but the pace of the growth was limited by key people being involved in mass hosting operations.
Therefore, we have put a lot of efforts in 2017 into the re-organization in order to reach the level where we feel comfortable with creating this spin-off. In the second quarter of the current year, this project will be set up as an independent company.
I am also very confident that we will be able to bring to life more of these project in the future. This will be serving as one of the key ways to increase the growth of DHH in the following years.”
What plans does DHH have for this upcoming year?
Uroš Čimžar: “There are some projects underway, and we are looking to introduce some of the new products already in the second quarter of 2018.
We are planning to increase average revenue per user, meaning that we will be offering additional products to the clients. In fact, this is what our customers are already asking for. I am happy that we are able to deliver on our side.”
Which goals does DHH plan to achieve in the next 5 years in terms of market growth?
Uroš Čimžar: “As for the markets, where we are already present, we definitely want to consolidate our market share further. For Italian market, we have a different strategy. There, we are planning to improve our positions in the niches we have entered and, most likely, to search for more niches to serve.
Yet, for Slovenia, Serbia, and Croatia, we are aiming to become a dominant player.
Moreover, we are also looking into becoming more focused on being a service provider, not just a host provider. We also considering adding other services that are in demand. It can include everything from marketing tools and service to the infrastructure services and some of the services that are available for the enterprise level-clients. We are ready to provide this kind of service to the markets.
Another exciting goal that DHH is aiming to achieve is to go global. Mostly, we are looking to address the English speaking markets. I would like to launch a few product-oriented businesses.
Additionally, we are looking to realize the potential of some of the internal products through cooperating with regional startups and helping them develop and grow globally. Speaking differently, I would like us to unlock the technical potential of the region.”
How do you see Web Hosting, SaaS and Cloud Computing industries in 5, 10 years from now?
Uroš Čimžar: “Cloud market is growing quite fast, while the mass hosting market is a mature market, which makes the growth of the latter not so rapid.
These markets will be definitely more consolidated than now. I believe that in the future, the companies that realized how the market is changing will have the opportunity to survive.
Specifically, this relates to the shift in customer expectations. For instance, while 10 years ago people were actually looking for web hosting, now people are looking for an opportunity to “be online.”