Innovation, excellence, uptime, sustainability. These four words have long-been synonymous with Kao Data, and since joining as its new Chief Operating Officer (COO) this August, I’ve witnessed first-hand the tenacity, and determination of our team.
Reflecting on my 30-year tenure within data centres, I’ve had the pleasure of working with a host of excellent colleagues, supply chain partners and suppliers in every corner of the world. And while each one has brought with it new ways of working, the people, their attention to procedural detail, and the high standards of excellence they demand have often been the determining factor in each organisations’ success.
Today the operational function within a data centre covers so many areas. From customer services and implementation to design and engineering, networks and systems, security, incident management, FM, and health and safety. Having expert partners that you can rely on is fundamental to the safety, effectiveness and performance of each facility, and the people that you choose to work with become closely intertwined with its resilience.
As many of our peers will have seen, last week we named CBRE Data Centre Solutions our new Integrated Facilities Management (iFM) partner – an appointment that not only reinforces our strong reputation for operational excellence, but will provide the highest levels of FM service and procedural standardisation across our data centre platform.
Appointed for its global capability to support our imminent expansion into Europe, and its outstanding track record for managing hyperscale data centre and distributed real estate portfolios, CBRE will now be responsible for the complete spectrum of hard and soft FM services at Kao Data.
From maintenance and engineering to front-of-house FM services, CBRE will use its acclaimed Critical Environments Risk Management (CERM™) programme to help us better identify and reduce human-related risks, and ensure our record for 100% customer uptime is maintained.
When it comes to people, changing your long-standing FM partner is indeed no small feat. It’s a slow and carefully considered process that requires attention to detail at every level.
Our decision to partner with CBRE, therefore, has only be made possible through the relentless hard work of my colleagues during the last two years, and much of which has taken place prior to my appointment. I’d like to especially thank our Operations Director, Mike Tamblingson, and our Service Management Director, Fraser Clarke.
Change is also challenging but inevitable. It is the very nature of the industry that we work in and the technology we house in our data centres. One only needs to look to the accelerated growth demands that AI has placed on our industry globally, and the ways that it’s forced it to adapt and change.
To that effect, and on behalf of everyone at Kao Data, I’d like to extend my sincerest thanks to our longstanding partners at JCA for their outstanding support during the last six years. They have been a trusted and valued partner since our first Harlow data centre became operational in 2018, and their expertise has not only supported our growth and development in Harlow, but it’s helped us make that one of the Europe’s finest data centre campuses.
Finally, to Craig Bristow and the team at CBRE, this is just the beginning of our journey together at Kao Data, and I speak on behalf of our whole organisation when I say we too are looking forward to the future – especially as we stand on the cusp of expansion across our portfolio.
Like any successful business, Kao Data has been built on a reputation for excellence, customer service, uptime and leadership, and it is both the people and the trust that we place in them, that make this organisation such a compelling place to be.
