HBZ Bank South Africa (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Habib Bank Zurich) recently upgraded its e-mail solution from legacy Microsoft to Google Apps.
Google secured this deal via its locally-based enterprise partner, Grove Group (www.groveis.com). Google is continuing its march into the enterprise space, with more companies adopting its collaboration and communication suite called Google Apps for Business.
Google's recent wins certainly indicate that not only are Google's services ready for large businesses, the security of its services are being endorsed by the most security conscious of organisations, ie, banks. While HBZ Bank is the first bank in SA to go Google, it is not an isolated incident of a bank moving to Google Apps for Business. Spanish bank, BBVA, also recently moved its 110 000 employees to Google Apps, a very large deal by any standard.
Nusrat Zaidi, Head of IT at HBZ Bank South Africa, had this to say regarding the reason for moving to Google's cloud: “For HBZ Bank Limited South Africa, there was only one option when it came to upgrading our e-mail solution from legacy Microsoft Exchange. This option was Google Apps. Cost saving was a major factor in our decision. Our head office is also on Google Apps, so now we are also realising the same productivity and collaboration benefits. From a cost efficiency perspective, there really was no other option but to go Google.”
While Zaidi makes the point that cost reduction was the pivotal factor, he also points out that productivity and collaboration gains were imperative in the decision.
Chad Bartlett, Head of African Sales at Grove Group, added: "Grove is delighted to have been involved in assisting the first South African-based bank onto the Google Apps for Business services. In fact, what makes this even more significant is that HBZ Bank is part of the Habib Bank Zurich, which operates out of a country with one of the highest banking procedures and standards in the world. Grove is happy that the security and privacy standards offered by Google's Enterprise team were enough to meet the high expectations of HBZ Bank and their clients." The pure security economies of scale offered by a global vendor, like Google, cannot be underestimated when measuring against traditional in-house security methods."
Share