Fletcher Building, Google Cloud, TCS partnership to drive growth through data and digital innovation

Google Cloud and Tata Consultancy Services have announced they have partnered with Fletcher Building to build a flexible, Google Cloud-based enterprise platform to support long-term growth and innovation.

With operations in New Zealand, Australia and the South Pacific, Fletcher Building has more than 25 different businesses across manufacturing, distribution, retail, home building, and major infrastructure projects.

With numerous different ERP systems, a myriad of business processes, and the growing need for a comprehensive view of its customers, Fletcher Building launched the Digital@Fletchers program to drive technology-led change and growth in the business.

Fletcher Building is partnering with Google Cloud and TCS to implement enterprise-grade, cloud capability to run its mission-critical enterprise workloads to enable greater uptime and flexibility, develop its customer data strategy to create an end-to-end understanding of customer needs and behaviours, and to respond quickly to market changes and opportunities.

TCS will use its multi-horizon cloud transformation framework and extensive cloud experience to help Fletcher Building build a new future-ready digital core using Google Cloud. This foundation will simplify the infrastructure landscape, reduce technology debt, host mission-critical workloads, provide a unified view of its customers and enable future innovation.

"We see digital as a key driver of transformation, growth and innovation at Fletcher Building," says Daniel Beecham, chief information officer, Fletcher Building.

"As we continue to ramp up our eCommerce, digitisation, automation and data analytics functions, we need a stable and secure technology platform that can cater to our needs today - and support us into the future," he says.

"Google Cloud's powerful data and analytics capabilities and its co-innovation agenda with SAP, combined with TCS domain industry knowledge and cloud engineering expertise, made it the logical choice to underpin Digital@Fletchers."

Alister Dias, vice president Google Cloud, Australia and New Zealand, says building for the future starts with having the right digital foundations.

"By partnering with Google Cloud and TCS, Fletcher Building is now able to modernise its mission critical systems for greater scalability and availability, build its data capabilities and deepen connections with customers - all on the industry's cleanest cloud," he says.

Ganesa Subramanian Vaikuntam, business unit head for retail, travel, transportation and hospitality st TCS Australia and New Zealand, adds, "TCS is pleased to partner with Fletcher Building and Google Cloud to create a new digital core that will enable better customer experience through data-driven insights and analytics and support future growth.

"Our deep industry knowledge, technology expertise and extensive portfolio of accelerators will enable Fletcher Building to harness the full power of cloud to reimagine all aspects of their business."

Google Cloud will support Fletcher Buildings employees with the skills required to implement and maintain these technologies. Last year, Google Cloud announced a commitment to equip more than 40 million people with Google Cloud skills.

Through Google Cloud Skills Boost, Fletcher Building employees are now taking advantage of more than 700 hands-on labs, role-based courses, skill badges, and certification resources, including 16 new learning paths - all of which are available on-demand globally.

By migrating workloads to the carbon neutral infrastructure of Google Cloud, TCS will help Fletcher Building reduce the carbon footprint associated with those workloads, contributing to its sustainability goals. Fletcher Building will also implement Google Clouds recently launched Carbon Footprint reporting tool to measure, track, and report on the carbon footprint associated with its cloud usage.

The company aspires to be an Australasian leader in sustainable building materials, construction, and distribution. It was recognised among Asia Pacific regions most sustainable companies in the 2020 Dow Jones Sustainability Asia Pacific Index.

"The building and construction industry is at a critical tipping point; the entire sector needs to shift the way it designs, builds and sources materials for a more sustainable future," says Beecham.

"As we transform our business, sustainability remains a paramount part of our strategy, and this extends to the partners we go on this journey with," he says.

"As the cleanest cloud in the industry, Google Cloud shares our vision of creating a sustainable future by reducing carbon emissions and overall environmental impact."