Rentokil Becomes Google’s Biggest Cloud Customer

Rentokil Initial, best known for its cleaning and pest control businesses, has become Google’s biggest customer for cloud applications, in a deal that will simplify the company’s communications and get 35.000 staff on Google Mail by the end of 2010.

The company, which employs 78,000 staff, currently uses 40 different email systems and has 180 domains in its six operating divisions, but these will be simplified into a uniform web-based cloud service, which Rentokil will extend to mobile workers in washrooms and offices in 50 countries round the world, the company said.

While some companies fear that cloud services such as Google Apps are not sufficiently secure, or do not comply with data protection regulations Google has always argued strongly that the cloud is more secure.

Google convinced Rentokil of its security and compliance strengths without making any special concessions, said Robert Whiteside, head of Google Enterprise UK,Ireland and Benelux.

“Every serious business is concerned about security, and we’ve worked through that with them,” said Whiteside. “Rentokil is getting the same service as all Google Apps Premier Edition online customers.” The service is backed by a SAS 70 type 2 audit, he added.

Around 20,000 Rentokil staf have email, and this will be extended to 35,000 more, mainly mobile usersas part of a five year plan which Rentokil hopes to improve its operations.

The company investigated other ways to consolidate its email and carried out an 800-user trial of Google Apps for 100 days in its Ambius landscaping divisio.

The company hopes to save IT costs, and also use features such as shared calendars, translation, chat and video.

“By deploying Google Apps, we can overcome a wide range of technical and communication issues,” said Bryan Kinsella, chief information officer of Rentokil Initial, “The frustrations of not having access to a single company-wide email address database will disappear and the translation difficulties faced by those colleagues wanting to collaborate with others around the world will be lessened.”