Mitigating risk and powering growth.
Fleetwood is an ASX-listed company that provides innovative spaces for people to thrive. It is known for leading the way in offsite manufacturing, modular construction and recreational vehicle (RV) solutions, and operates across five states. Fleetwood has financed large projects in the education, government, and infrastructure sectors.
According to Hayden Slee, Information Technology Infrastructure Manager at Fleetwood, this year the on-premises servers the company relied on to power sites across the country was proving expensive and difficult to manage.
“The design and deployment of our projects depends on reliable IT systems, and the dispersed, on-premises set-ups across Australia were proving inefficient and difficult to maintain. The small size of our IT team meant resources were stretched, impacting project delivery as the business was ramping up,” he said.
Fleetwood was also feeling the impacts of Australia’s technology skills shortage, particularly when it came to mitigating cyber threats. To provide the level of protections needed, the business was forced to pull its IT team away from other important day-to-day tasks.
"The small size of our IT team meant resources were stretched, impacting project delivery as the business was ramping up."
The Solution.
Fleetwood engaged Macquarie Telecom and Macquarie Cloud Services to:
- Migrate to Microsoft Azure.
- Roll out NBN connectivity and WiFi.
- Implement 24-hour security information and event management (SIEM) monitoring across its sites, warehouses and factories.
- Deploy SD-WAN and SD-LAN technologies to simplify networks and Wi-Fi routers, making them more software centric.
Results.
According to Slee, the new set-up has already simplified processes and eased workloads for the team.
“Having everything concentrated in Azure with one service provider has removed complexity. All our teams need is a secure internet connection at each site to take projects to completion. It has also freed up time, effort and expenditure that used be associated with purchasing new servers.
Slee continued that the service provided by Macquarie’s local team has accelerated IT support that will support business goals for years to come.
“Without access to Macquarie’s resources, skills and expertise, it would have taken years to reach this level of maturity and capitalise on our goals. They’ve become an extension of our team, and we have weekly meetings where engineers, project managers and network administrators collaborate and work through issues. This has been great for skills sharing and ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
“Macquarie even takes the time to send people to remote locations. One time, to scope out a project, they sent a team
member 2,000 kilometres north of Perth. None of the vendors we’ve dealt with over the past five years have shown that kind of commitment, and it allowed us to pull together a quote much more accurately.”
The 24-hour cyber monitoring has increased assurances for Fleetwood at a time when cyber-attacks launched against Australian organisations are on the rise and skills shortages persist in cyber and technology fields.
“Access to round-the-clock cyber protections has been a huge weight off our shoulders. If our team had to manage this burden completely, they’d be dragged away from other important aspects of their day-to-day roles,” Slee said.
Macquarie Telecom WA State Manager Aaron Tighe said: “Fleetwood is making a real difference in the lives of Australians, including those who rely on affordable housing. We’re privileged to play a part in removing roadblocks to their projects, especially as skills shortages are rampant in both technology and construction.”
According to Slee, the new set-up has already simplified processes and eased workloads for the team.
“Having everything concentrated in Azure with one service provider has removed complexity. All our teams need is a secure internet connection at each site to take projects to completion. It has also freed up time, effort and expenditure that used be associated with purchasing new servers.
Slee continued that the service provided by Macquarie’s local team has accelerated IT support that will support business goals for years to come.
“Without access to Macquarie’s resources, skills and expertise, it would have taken years to reach this level of maturity and capitalise on our goals. They’ve become an extension of our team, and we have weekly meetings where engineers, project managers and network administrators collaborate and work through issues. This has been great for skills sharing and ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
“Macquarie even takes the time to send people to remote locations. One time, to scope out a project, they sent a team
member 2,000 kilometres north of Perth. None of the vendors we’ve dealt with over the past five years have shown that kind of commitment, and it allowed us to pull together a quote much more accurately.”
The 24-hour cyber monitoring has increased assurances for Fleetwood at a time when cyber-attacks launched against Australian organisations are on the rise and skills shortages persist in cyber and technology fields.
“Access to round-the-clock cyber protections has been a huge weight off our shoulders. If our team had to manage this burden completely, they’d be dragged away from other important aspects of their day-to-day roles,” Slee said.
Macquarie Telecom WA State Manager Aaron Tighe said: “Fleetwood is making a real difference in the lives of Australians, including those who rely on affordable housing. We’re privileged to play a part in removing roadblocks to their projects, especially as skills shortages are rampant in both technology and construction.”
"Without access to Macquarie’s resources, skills and expertise, it would have taken years to reach this level of maturity and capitalise on our goals."
How Macquarie Cloud Services helped Fleetwood.
Finding a true technology partner in Macquarie Cloud Services allowed Fleetwood to build a cloud infrastructure that will serve their expansion.