Summit Homes

At A Glance

• Supports more than 300 current and archived user mailboxes with a robust email storage and archiving to meet building industry regulatory requirements
• Requirement to migrate in excess of five terabytes of data from previous provider
• Improved threat detection capability and security of email as a core business tool

The Summit Homes Group was established in 1978 and builds more than 1,000 homes per year across Western Australia. The Group has more than 300 employees across 19 diverse brands.

Challenge

An unexpected change in provider terms forced Summit Homes Group to rethink its entire email security, mailbox and archiving infrastructure. The Group, which builds around 1,000 homes each year in Western Australia, needed an unlimited mailbox solution that would accommodate constant changes in staff, as well as sending large attachments between the builders, clients and contractors.

Operating in such a highly regulated industry, Summit Homes Group required a way to cost effectively store at least seven years’ worth of email communications across hundreds of mailboxes. It also required a solution to integrate seamlessly with Microsoft Outlook and for users to be able to delete emails after they were read, knowing they could be easily accessed through an intuitive archive system at any time.

“As an industry we are required to have access to records for seven years,” said Fabio Fusari, Group IT Manager, Summit Homes Group. “But as a company, we offer a lifetime warranty on our builds, so we need to hold onto our records for a lot longer in case there’s need revisit a project.”

Solution

After an in-depth market assessment, Summit Homes Group selected Mimecast’s M2A solution that integrates mailbox and archiving services with email security including email filtering and URL rewriting.

Working with a local systems integrator, Summit Homes Group migrated in excess of five terabytes of mail archive data to Mimecast within a short period of time in the lead up to Christmas, one of the busiest times of year for the building industry.

Fusari explains the process of building a home from initial enquiry through to completion takes between one and three years, and there could be over 1,000 emails exchanged, including large attachments such as plans, during that process. Compounding the challenge is the fact that sales consultants tend to move jobs quite frequently, so a conversation started between a buyer and the company could involve multiple sales people.

Mimecast’s archiving feature makes it easy for the company to go back and review all the email exchanges that occur in the lead up to a build period, as well as during and after the home has been completed.

“With the pressure of a looming contract end date, it was imperative that the transition ran smoothly and we were up and running in a relatively short period of time,” he said. “Mimecast made it easy for us to access the mailbox of anyone that had left the company, and allowed us to extract the information and continue engagement with the customers seamlessly.”

Fusari sees Mimecast as the perfect fit for Summit Homes Group, with a similar culture and outlook, local presence and local data centers. “The Mimecast solution is something that I don’t have to think about too much, and for that reason it’s great. It just works, and our only reason to contact the local support team is if new features are rolled out,” he said.

Summary

Implementation of the Mimecast solution has reaped significant benefits for Summit Homes Group.

It enables archiving and access to emails, even when a mailbox user has left the company. This ensures business continuity, and assists Summit Homes Group to meet both regulatory and company requirements for project communications.

“Email is the life blood of our organization,” said Fusari. “And if Outlook goes down, we simply switch over to Mimecast and it’s business as usual.”

“Email is the lifeblood of our organization. With Mimecast we can always access our data. Even if there’s an email outage, we can switch our email over to Mimecast and it’s business as usual. ”

Fabio Fusari Group IT Manager, Summit Homes Group