Increased or have increased

Speakers of American English generally use the present perfect tense (have/has + past participle) far less than speakers of British English. In spoken American English, it is very common to use the simple past tense as an alternative in situations where the present perfect would usually have been used in British English. The two situations where this is especially likely are:

The opening phase, "over the past year" sets the tone of the verb, IMHO.

I'd use the present perfect tense (have/has + past participle) to show this has been a work in progress for this company over the past year.