London, 28 August 2014
Colt, the leading information delivery platform, supports BNP Paribas Real Estate Germany (BNPPRE) with a scalable network. The managed networking service allows the German real estate provider to vary its bandwidth in line with changing requirements across its 12 offices, enabling employees to stay connected with their customers.
The German real estate market is growing. In the top locations of the top cities (Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne and Munich) retail space as well as modern office space is in high demand, along with a strong interest in logistics and industrial space. BNP Paribas Real Estate is a subsidiary of the French bank BNP Paribas and one of the leading real estate consultants in Germany. As such the company offers a comprehensive portfolio of services across all stages of the real estate cycle to national and international clients. The portfolio in Germany includes the business units: Transaction, Consulting, Valuation, Property Management as well as Investment Management since 2013. Internationally this is complemented by property development. Property Management and Investment Management have been enhanced through acquisitions in 2013, and now BNPRRE has over 700 employees at 12 office locations nationwide. Following these mergers, there was a requirement to centralise the IT infrastructure to achieve the strategic goals of cost reduction and simplified IT operations management.
“The IT department supports the growth“, says Sylvain Trouf, Head of IT at BNP Paribas Real Estate Germany. “New locations have to be technically linked up and integrated to running systems. All staff have to be able to access the resources they need to perform their day to day activities. For us Colt is exactly the right partner, as the company’s network maps to nearly all of our locations IT needs.”
Colt supports the BNP Paribas Real Estate’s objectives in a number of ways. Firstly, if bandwidth needs to be extended, Colt can deliver this in just a few days, without having to go to site to change hardware. This cuts costs and implementation time. Secondly most of BNP Paribas Real Estate Germany’s locations are connected to Colt’s IP VPN fibre-optic network at a rate of 10 Mbit/s. The bandwidth can be expanded swiftly to up to 100 Mbit/s or gigabit network access if required. Finally the headquarters in Düsseldorf has a redundant connection to ensure high availability and flexibility, and separate IP Access for strengthened business continuity. Backup is carried out using Colt’s redundant fibre-optic network.
Expansion into new locations across Germany, and the adoption of new technologies means that the IT department is an integral part of BNP Paribas Real Estate’s growth. Commenting on the partnership with Colt, Sylvain Trouf concluded: “Challenges were tackled and mastered proactively. The project team had everything under control. I felt well informed and did not have to invest much time and energy in the project myself. The specialist departments scarcely noticed that a transition was taking place.”
Markus Hacker, Regional General Manager, DACH at Colt added: “Thanks to our scalable infrastructure we can adapt the network bandwidth at any given time to meet the BNP Paribas Real Estate’s demands. At the same time we can also guarantee a reliable connection. If, for instance a natural disaster or power cut should bring a location to a standstill, the employees can move to another office and continue their work seamlessly. The network service is designed to be able to grow in sync with BNP Paribas Real Estate Germany and its business ambitions.”
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About BNP Paribas Real estate
BNP Paribas Real Estate, one of the leading international real estate providers, offers its clients a comprehensive range of services that span the entire real estate lifecycle: property development, transaction, consulting, valuation, property management and investment management. BNP Paribas Real Estate has local expertise on a global scale through its presence in 38 countries with more than 180 offices and 3,700 employees (17 wholly owned and 21 by its Alliance network that represents today more than 3,000 people). BNP Paribas Real Estate is a subsidiary of BNP Paribas.
For more information: www.realestate.bnpparibas.com
Real Estate for a changing world
About Colt
Colt is the information delivery platform, enabling its customers to deliver, share, process and store their vital business information. An established leader in delivering integrated network, data centre, voice and IT services to major organisations, midsized businesses and wholesale customers worldwide; Colt operates in 22 European countries with a 46,000km European network and transatlantic network capacity. Colt has metropolitan area networks in 42 major European cities with direct fibre connections into 19,800 buildings and 20 carrier neutral Colt data centres.
In addition to its direct sales capability, Colt has four indirect channels to market: Agent, Franchise, Distributor and Wholesale which includes Carriers, Service Providers, VARs and Voice Resellers.
Colt is listed on the London Stock Exchange (COLT).
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