Fleetwood Sidesteps Tech Skills Shortage To Accelerate Business Goal Achievement With Macquarie Telecom

Macquarie Telecom and Macquarie Cloud Services, part of Macquarie Telecom Group (ASX: MAQ), today announced the roll out of cloud, NBN connectivity, SD-WAN and Wi-Fi for Fleetwood Limited (ASX: FWD). With support from the local Macquarie team, Fleetwood has streamlined business processes, accelerated IT goals by years, and achieved a stronger cyber posture as Australia battles a rising number of attacks.

Fleetwood is an ASX-listed company that provides innovative spaces, and is known for leading the way in offsite manufacturing, modular construction and recreational vehicle (RV) solutions. The business operates across five states and has financed large projects in the education, government, and infrastructure sectors.

According to Hayden Slee, Information Technology Infrastructure Manager at Fleetwood, 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 engaged Macquarie Telecom and Macquarie Cloud Services to migrate to Microsoft Azure, and roll out NBN connectivity, Wi-Fi and 24-hour security information and event management (SIEM) monitoring across its sites, warehouses and factories. SD-WAN and SD-LAN technologies were also deployed to simplify networks and Wi-Fi routers, making them more software centric.

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.”

Increasing cyber protections as attacks ramp up

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.”

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