GWA is making every drop of water count through sustainable IT
As a leading Australian supplier of building fixtures and fittings to households and commercial premises, GWA Group Limited (“GWA”) has become a brand synonymous with smart water management. Its commitment to innovative water solutions is exemplified by patented inventions like the geo-flush toilet, which has now become a global phenomenon. Today, GWA is the leading supplier of building fixtures and fittings for households and commercial premises, and a provider of the best water experiences for customers across ANZ and the region.
Listed on the Australian Stock Exchanged since 1993, GWA has evolved its business from manufacturing to owning and distributing products recognized for their superior solutions for water, including brands like Caroma, Methven, Dorf, and Clark. What has not changed is GWA’s mission in making life better with innovative and sustainable solutions for water.
Adam Simpson, IT Manager, GWA Group Limited, said: “With GWA’s acquisition of Methven in 2019, our footprint extended beyond our traditionally served markets in ANZ. GWA effectively became a global brand with a physical presence across the UK and China, which meant that the complexity of our IT operations just increased several fold.”
The Challenge
Like many modern businesses, GWA has been on the path of digital transformation for several years. Commensurate with GWA’s transition from a traditional business with a manufacturing component to one focused on ownership and distribution, going digital gives it the agility and flexibility to be more responsive to market demands and needs.
GWA migrated a majority of its applications to Microsoft Azure as part of this digitalization journey, and the IT team too went through its own transformation–from support office for the company’s data center to supporting the Azure platform.
“We went from centralized to a decentralized model,” Simpson said, “because all our staff can be at any office and consume any services they required.”
However, the nature of GWA’s growing global footprint meant that its IT operations had to review all maintenance contracts for equipment across markets. And that was when issues surfaced.
The Solution
Through this evaluation process of its global TPM contracts, GWA discovered the perfect partner in Curvature. As a global leader in independent, multi-vendor support solutions, Curvature has hundreds of engineer-staffed service centers and parts locations throughout the world. Consistently rated one of the world’s best TPM providers, Curvature delivers 24/7 global technical support, advanced hardware replacement, and complete lifecycle management to companies across three continents, with a significant presence across Asia, and Europe.
“Curvature’s global footprint not only provided the standards for quality service and support we needed in the markets where we were operating,” Simpson said, “they also gave us greater visibility into the state of our infrastructure through effective IT Asset Management, and enhanced our ability to provide cohesive and consistent connectivity for all our users no matter where they are.”
