The Leaseweb decision to launch our company in the UK is driven by a few strategic considerations. As a global provider of cloud infrastructure solutions, we serve many customers who are using our services in different locations across the globe. We have seen a growing demand for UK-based infrastructure from our existing customers, which we decided to address as their strategic infrastructure business partner.
In addition to this growing demand, we see a vast opportunity. The UK is still the largest market in Europe for cloud services, with significant growth rates for the next few years. The London Internet Exchange has for many years been a crucial pillar of the internet, and Leaseweb is delighted to have a local presence in London in addition to strong positions in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Washington DC, Singapore, and Sydney.
Establishing a Global Presence
Brexit is also going to drive demand for UK-based infrastructure services for data sovereignty and governance reasons by global companies serving UK-based businesses. The UK’s announced EU leave also means that EU-based customers are planning to serve their UK-based customers from a UK-based location.
Aside from launching a new office for growth and governance reasons, we see a growing demand from UK companies to partner with a single global operating cloud infrastructure provider that can enable them to serve their customers outside the UK from locations within the EU zone or even further from the United States, Asia and Pacific.
For companies with a global presence, it is especially important to establish consistency for employees and customers across countries, and having physical infrastructure in different locations around the world can help create that consistency. Distance matters, especially in regards to end-to-end latency. The farther away your facility is, the more it hurts your end users.
Consider Legal Regulations
While performance issues are a major problem for organizations, there are also legal and security regulations to consider as well. Data protection laws and regulations vary based on the region and country, so organizations serving customers in the United States may have to adhere to different rules than in Europe or Asia, for instance. As you grow and start launching facilities in different regions, be sure to fully understand the laws in each country.
Once Leaseweb’s UK location is established in November 2017, we’ll be servicing customers around the world from 20 datacenters throughout Europe, the United States, Asia, and the Pacific.
The internet business is a global business by nature. To provide the best and most reliable user experience every time everywhere, leading internet and IT business will rely on global infrastructure provides who can deliver locally across the globe.
For more information, contact sales@global.leaseweb.com