Berlin, November 3, 2015 – First Colo GmbH’s has seen uninterrupted growth this year: After receiving the “Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Award” award in the last few years, First Colo is once again among the winners in 2015. The innovative IT service data center took 36th place last year and has moved up to 13th place this year. The competition was originally launched in the US in 1995 and has since developed into an international initiative. The award ceremony of the auditing and consulting company Deloitte took place last night at the Museum for Communication in Berlin. Winning the third consecutive award attests to First Colo’s continuing momentum of growth as well as its rewarding and constant innovation.

The willingness to invest in staff and data center technologies is seen by management as the driver of growth for First Colo GmbH. Since First Colo tripled the server space with the recent expansion in Frankfurt and doubled their office space, they have, for example, an uncompromisingly powerful “DDoS protection” against overload attacks by cybercriminals that usually only large, internationally established companies can afford. The investment costs of this protection technology from a global market leader were in the high six figures and complements First Colo’s already proven technology, where the first effective countermeasures against DDoS attacks had already been developed more than 10 years ago. The Security Operations Center (SOC) team is therefore able to rely on long-standing accumulated expertise.

“In the past we had talked with data center customers who switched from one protection provider to the next out of frustration when it came to DDoS protection. It was clear to us that we want to position ourselves in such a way that we could bring an end to this annoying issue for our customers once and for all and as a result have invested a lot of money in staff and technologies,” said Jerome Evans, managing director of the data center at Frankfurt Airport, “and meanwhile the headaches associated with it have disappeared: For First Colo, 2015 has been the year with the highest number of new customers in our company’s history. Although 2015 isn’t included in this year’s Deloitte selection criteria, it nevertheless shows a longer term clear direction of the growth for our company. I’ve also noticed an increase in satisfaction among our existing customers. If this trend continues, I’m therefore going to assume that First Colo will continue to experience healthy growth into 2016/2017, even if pure logic has already ruled out the fact that one could permanently stay among the winners of Deloitte’s “Fast 50 Award” according to the applied selection criteria.”

The Deloitte Competition is in its 13th year in Germany this year. It’s already become an institution and a firmly established award in the technology sector. With it, Deloitte honors the business achievements of the fastest growing technology companies in Germany. Prizes are awarded each year to companies that have exceptional growth rates. The selection criteria measure the “cumulative sales growth” of the last five fiscal years—this time based on the years 2010 to 2014. Companies that are mainly from the IT, communications, and life sciences sector are invited to participate.

“It’s a special honor for us in 2015 to receive this award for the third consecutive year and to belong to the group of technology companies with the fastest growth,” Jerome Evans said at the award ceremony, “the award is also proof that we are right on target with the basic idea of offering the full spectrum of IT services from a single source. The award underlines our good positioning in a German market that is largely made up of medium-sized companies. Here personal contacts, short lines of communication with clear responsibilities, as well as tailored problem-solving skills are expected and rewarded accordingly by the customer. True to these principles, we will therefore continue to listen to our customers and continue to be service-oriented.”

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