TIAA HENDERSONREAL ESTATE

TIAA HENDERSON REAL ESTATE

INTRODUCTION THE CHALLENGE THE RESULT

From conception to global business in nine months:how cloud built one of the world’s largest real estate fund managers

01 02 03Announced by two well-known and trusted global fund managers, TIAA-CREF and Henderson Global Investors, the launch of TIAA Henderson Real Estate (TH Real Estate) combined more than 90 years of global real estate knowledge and innovative real estate investment solutions.

With an ambitious aim of becoming fully operational in just nine months, the new company wanted to achieve the status of being one of the world’s largest real estate funds, operating in 19 countries.

In order to commence trading from April 1 2014, TH Real Estate needed a full business and technology suite built from scratch, including a global wide area network, private cloud facilities in Europe and Asia, virtual desktops and high quality unified communications tools across the world.

Choosing a vendor that understood the timelines and was willing to partner in not only the delivery but also the vision was therefore essential.

TH Real Estate selected Telstra, drawing on the telecommunications solutions provider’s global capabilities, resources and flexibility to quickly implement a new infrastructure from the ground up. Through provision of Managed Network, IaaS and Unified Communication services, Telstra helped TH Real Estate launch its business and lay the foundation for strategic growth and business success.

The establishment of a global entity from a standing start and with very tight deadlines presents a number of challenges, particularly when up against the traditionally long lead times which come with networks and equipment.

TH Real Estate also had a very specific technology strategy they wanted to incorporate for the new business in order to underpin business operations, cater for growth and provide a great user experience.

The areas of focus included:

• Effective operation across 19 countries with the ability to easily increase capacity, in Asia or Europe, according to business demand and grow easily into new global markets.

• Information security and regulatory compliance across various markets.

• Sustainability and a reduced environmental footprint through best of breed technology.

• Staff flexibility and productivity.

To realise its business objectives and achieve the desired growth, TH Real Estate underwent a series of phases to select its technology partner and solution, including competitive bidding, technical design, contracting and implementation.

Telstra adopted an ‘agile infrastructure’ approach to allow TH Real Estate to commence building key elements of the global network and hosting, which enabled the model to be built according to a design that was still forming.

TH Real Estate’s corporate core business applications and data are now housed within Telstra’s secure IaaS facilities, located in Asia and Europe. Other critical applications are hosted externally but are integrated into the core, allowing for flexibility to add or take away applications to support the business as well as support a distributed business recovery model which sets it apart.

This innovative solution overcame TH Real Estate’s key concerns, such as security, disaster recovery and compliance, while also minimising the internal resourcing required to manage these systems. The ability to easily increase capacity as the business grows has also been achieved.

Telstra’s Managed Network using MPLS provides connectivity to all of TH Real Estate’s worldwide offices, along with a Managed Cisco Unified Communication suite. The Cisco Telephony, Messaging and Telepresence Video Conferencing services provide staff with collaboration tools to enhance their productivity and reduce the need for business travel between countries, enabling TH Real Estate to reduce its environmental footprint.

RENISHAW

THE CHALLENGERenishaw is a business founded on innovation. Over more than 30 years, it has patented hundreds of products and built up a reputation for manufacturing the most advanced and precise measurement tools and other highly technical instruments. Following years of global expansion, however, the company’s success hinges on more than just technical excellence. Renishaw exports over 90% of its products and has to support sales and deliver a high quality of customer service in over 30 markets around the world. Consequently, fast, reliable global communications are absolutely essential for the business.

To reduce complexity and minimise costs, Renishaw wanted to have a single supplier of communications for its entire business. However, as it expanded into the Asia Pacific region, it discovered that few telecommunications providers could meet its requirements in all of its global markets.

THE SOLUTIONRenishaw selected Telstra because of the company’s strength in the Asia Pacific region and its ability to provide a truly global network. Replacing its existing network, Renishaw opted for Telstra’s Global IP Virtual Private Network (VPN) service with bandwidths ranging from 2MB to 20MB depending on the needs of each location. Based on Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology, this service offers Renishaw many-to-many connectivity, lower latency, improved bandwidth performance and Quality of Service (QoS) parameters.

Initially, Renishaw established MPLS connections to around ten offices, including a new office in Hong Kong. Then, as it grew into new regions and opened new facilities, it gradually added further connections and expanded its bandwidth capacity. Today, its Global VPN connects over 30 offices, in more than 25 countries in Europe, America, Asia and the Pacific Rim.

Telstra’s Global IP VPN service is fully managed and includes 24/7 support. Telstra also provides a named account manager and service manager, who can answer any questions or address any concerns. After switching to Telstra’s Global IP VPN service, Renishaw’s overall global communications costs went down.

THE BENEFITSRenishaw has been a customer of Telstra for close to ten years. During this time, the company has been able to adapt and grow its Global VPN in an easy and progressive fashion, by establishing new links and increasing the bandwidth of existing ones. Renishaw has also been able to develop the use of its network, as its business needs have changed. For example, in several countries, Renishaw is now taking advantage of the QoS parameters of the MPLS network to provide voice over IP and video conferencing services between several sites, in addition to traditional data networking.

Renishaw believes that one of the key advantages of Telstra’s Global IP VPN service is the 24/7 technical support, which is included as standard. Round-the-clock service monitoring and support has gradually become more essential to the company over recent years as it has increased the number of employees working in every time zone. The fact that Telstra’s Global IP VPN service is fully managed is also very important because this enables Renishaw’s central I.T. team to focus on other business priorities.

Telstra’s Global IP VPN service provides Renishaw’s remote offices with fast and reliable access to critical business systems that are held centrally. For example, Renishaw uses a regional stock control and management system to help it reduce the amount of stock held at some locations around the world. All of Renishaw’s global offices connect to this system, over the Telstra network, to check product availability and place orders. The performance of the network has been a key factor in ensuring the optimum use of this stock management system and in helping the company to minimise stock holdings and improve its cost efficiency.

Renishaw operates from over 30 locations around the world and is expanding into the growth markets of the Asia Pacific region. Wherever the business goes, Telstra’s Global IP VPN service goes too.

“We do business from over 30 locations around the world, so reliable, global data communications are essential. Telstra’s Global IP VPN service provides us with a single, high speed network to connect all our global offices, including those in the Asia Pacific region. The service is fully managed and supported 24/7, so we can trust Telstra to look after our network while we focus our attention on our business.”Brian Lyall Group I.T. Development Manager, Renishaw plc

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KEY BENEFITS

• Reliable global connectivity between over 30 international sites

• Comprehensive service management, backed up by 24/7 support

• Lower global communications costs

• The ability to easily adapt and expand the network when business needs change

Contact your Global Enterprise & Services – International account representative or email tg_sales@team.telstra.com for more details. Asia: +852 2827 0066 • Americas: +1 877 835 7872 • EMEA: +44 20 7965 0000 • Australia: +61 02 8202 5134 telstraglobal.com

“When we received the brief from TH Real Estate, we felt this was a fantastic opportunity to start a true partnership with an emerging global company and play a part in such a unique and innovative project.”

Tom HomerHead of EMEA and the Americas Enterprise at Telstra

“The decision of vendor in the end became quite simple – a global provider with strength in Asia Pacific and the ability to bring together three streams of services across cloud, network infrastructure and communications. Telstra was unmatched in its ability to align its approach to our objectives and willingness to share the risks in our ambitious plan.”

James WhyteActing Head of ICT at TH Real Estate

“As a regulated financial organisation, maintaining the integrity of our information security is fundamental to every decision we make. By using Telstra’s Cloud Infrastructure platform, we have been able to focus less on the day-to-day operations and more on enabling an innovative end-user experience through new corporate applications.”

James WhyteActing Head of ICT at TH Real Estate