Client: NetApp
Industry: Technology, Network Data Storage
Real Estate & Facilities Portfolio: 133 sites across the Americas, APAC, EMEA and India totaling 3.9 million square feet, serving over 14,000 workers
Trimble Solutions: CenterStone and Manhattan (migration)
Customer Since: 2005

Great places to work demand great technology solutions to plan and manage critical workplaces and foster collaboration. That is why NetApp, repeatedly selected by the Work Institute as a ‘Great Place to Work’ and by Fortune Magazine as one of the ‘100 Best Companies’ for 13 consecutive years, chose Trimble.

Who is NetApp?

NetApp is a leading computer storage and data management company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. Founded in 1992, NetApp is ranked on the Fortune 500, and is trusted by thousands of organizations worldwide to store, manage and protect their data. Ensuring its real estate, workspaces, operations and support services are optimized and managed to their fullest potential has become an increasingly important factor in empowering NetApp’s award-winning corporate culture and is paramount to the company’s ongoing globalization, expansion and competitive advantage.

To transform the planning and management of their building site and space utilization during the company’s early expansion, NetApp turned to Trimble CenterStone computer aided facility management (CAFM). NetApp is now migrating to Trimble Manhattan, an integrated real estate & workplace management system (IWMS), to help optimize the company’s complete facilities lifecycle and real estate portfolio for strategic growth moving forward.

NetApp’s Real Estate and Facility Overview

NetApp owns and manages 133 facilities worldwide, including 50 corporate office buildings and research and development facilities in the U.S. and other offices and technical sites located in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Switzerland, Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Since 2006 the company has expanded its real estate footprint, including new development and renovation projects at its Sunnyvale headquarters, Research Triangle Park in North Carolina and new executive briefing centers and R&D facilities in Bangalore and Amsterdam. Combined, NetApp’s facilities cover more than 3.9 million square feet and are occupied by NetApp’s workforce of more than 14,000 people – an estimated 5,000 of which are contract or temp workers and people with alternative work arrangements such as remote service reps and field sales managers supporting the company’s global and regional markets.

Key Challenges

One of the biggest challenges NetApp faced was ensuring that its real estate and workplace resources were efficiently utilized in times of rapid growth and change. Prior to using Trimble CenterStone, on-boarding and off-boarding information, as well as space planning and occupancy were manually tracked using disparate applications, spreadsheets and paper-based processes spread across geographically dispersed departments within the company.

As a result, data about new hires, transfers or terminations; worker access to privileged NetApp resources; and space utilization was often inaccurate or outdated, and many workplace resource management (WPR) processes were redundant. This made space planning and moves, adds, changes (M/A/C) time-consuming, expensive and inefficient. As the company expanded, NetApp quickly realized the need to centralize personnel data in a web based repository that was accessible by key stakeholders from the operations and WPR teams as well as HR, finance and IT. On-boarding and off-boarding processes needed to be automated and consolidated, and M/A/C workflow—from initial requests through approvals, execution of moves and post-occupancy evaluations, needed to be streamlined and standardized for more effective, proactive use.

Another challenge was lack of insight and collaboration made it difficult to accurately forecast real estate and service requirements for future growth, especially given NetApp’s dynamic workforce and increasing need for collaborative workspace  environments. For example, a building may be equipped to service 200 employees, but only 10 percent were using the space because they were out in the field or working remotely. NetApp needed a way to assess and track space utilization, determine the total cost of occupancy, and compare the availability of space and related services against future demands.

In addition, NetApp recognized the need to improve corrective and preventive maintenance management strategies and optimize lease management and other outsourced facilities management capabilities across the real estate portfolio.

Track Space Allocations and Utilization and Improve Move Management

In 2005, NetApp implemented Trimble CenterStone to track space allocations and utilization and to improve move management. Using CenterStone, NetApp was able to define a standard M/A/C workflow to enable consistent, timely, and on budget move projects. Soon after implementation, NetApp integrated data analysis capabilities of the system with HR, finance and IT provisioning systems to eliminate redundancies, improve facility utilization, lower costs and improve collaboration.

Utilizing CenterStone, the workplace resources team was able to quickly design multiple “what-if” scenarios, incorporating plans for relocations, renovations, adjacencies, consolidations and corporate reorganizations — all based on current information and robust analysis capabilities to determine future requirements. Data was readily presentable to stakeholders so that informed decisions could be made and plans executed with the utmost efficiency.

As a result of initial success with CenterStone, NetApp has upgraded to Trimble Manhattan as its standard platform for real estate & workplace portfolio management. By integrating financials, lease management, projects, space planning and management, maintenance, sustainability and analysis capabilities into a single technology platform, NetApp aims to increase the effectiveness of its buildings and workplace resources, reduce costs, and better respond to changing business and workforce requirements.

Book a Demo of Manhattan

If you would like to learn more about Trimble’s integrated workplace management software, please visit the Manhattan product page.