Why Outsource?

Speed to Market

Tapping the established products, technology infrastructure and customer support of an up-and-running hosting expert dramatically cuts the lead time. Through a reputable private label hosting provider, a turnkey solution takes approximately a month and a custom solution a few months, depending on the specific needs of the client.

Specialization

Stand-alone Web services companies employ several hundred specialists working full-time on product development, customer support and technology evaluation and implementation — setting the bar for the industry. Expertise, depth of bench and the focus of careers tied to the success in Web services business makes such a team tough to beat.

Product Development

Web hosting services have evolved dramatically in the past five years. The previous generation of plain vanilla solutions is disappearing as it is outpaced by consumer demand for more robust products. Newer applications of the current generation include: search engine marketing tools, online control panels, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, virtual private server (VPS) solutions, data center automation tools, SiteBuilder and more. Outsourcing to a Web services firm with strong research and development effectively guarantees a broadband provider access to an ongoing stream of competitive products to satisfy consumers, expand revenue per customer and create an increasingly sticky business.

Security

The dynamic and often unsecure nature of the Web itself places constant demands on Web services product management teams. Security is best managed by full-time specialists. Privacy, security and spam are good examples of areas that require ongoing vigilance and development:

• Constant updates to already sophisticated privacy controls are required to prevent breech in privacy.
• Many small businesses may not know how to secure their Web sites, but this is a crucial step to protect their businesses and their customers' information. When considering an outsourcing partner, carefully scrutinize the company’s track record of securing clients’ sites.
• As a broadband service provider, incoming spam may annoy you. But as a hosting provider, you have to address outgoing spam as well, with applications in place to measure and regulate outgoing email messages.

Technology and Infrastructure

Competitive, reliable Web hosting services require Intel-based servers and Linux and Windows operating systems to allow scaling to the masses. Additionally, data centers must meet, or ideally, exceed industry standards in terms of redundant power, backbone connections, fire suppression systems, cooling and internal networks. Outsourcing to a hosting company that, like Hostway, has experience in managing massive server infrastructures, works with both Linux and Windows environments and is committed to annual system upgrades, always makes better fiscal sense for broadband providers committed to service excellence.

Customer Service

Basic Web hosting involves a suite of related products such as Web site design, domain name registration, email, ecommerce and more. But, as the demand for increasingly sophisticated products grows, so does the need for the customer support team to be extremely knowledgeable in many different, yet interrelated, products.

While Hostway can handle all customer support, some companies prefer hybrid solutions. One example: the in-house support team is trained to recognize hosting issues and then transfers these “hot” calls to the hosting company’s support team, a team that is vertically specialized on Web hosting and online services. The outsourced support can then be entered in to a well-established escalation process that typically consists of multiple levels of customer service — first, second and third tier.

Outsource to a Global Leader… Hostway

Web hosting has grown beyond infancy into an industry with numerous stand-alone players specializing in developing Web hosting products and satisfying the unique needs of Web hosting customers. Hostway offers service providers the opportunity to play and win in this space with top-notch product development, support and technology.