SYDNEY -- Telstra and Visy today announced that Visy has awarded Telstra a five year $50 million contract to provide a whole of business network and an enterprise cloud computing platform supporting Visy's critical business applications.

Telstra will supply mobile voice and data services enabled by its world-class Next Gâ„¢ and Telstra Next IPâ„¢ networks to Visy's 140 Australian packaging, paper and recycling sites in Australia, New Zealand, Asia and the US.

Inside this network, an enterprise utility computing capability has also been integrated, providing security, computing, storage, and activities relating to disaster recovery and business continuity planning.

This game changing approach provides Visy with a cloud computing platform that supports critical enterprise systems, including its Global SAP environment and is expected to deliver a 30 per cent saving against the previous approach where the telecommunications network was separate from the computing model that was internally supported.

Visy Chief Information Officer, Mr Ken Major said the infrastructure means Visy can now focus on utilising rather than maintaining technology, enabling the company to improve core business efficiencies and increase overall productivity, whilst reaping the benefits of the disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities provided by the cloud computing model.

"Our business model is based on reducing cost, removing risk and managing growth. In order to remain competitive and achieve our commercial objectives in a tough economic environment, we need to change the way in which our IT resources are utilised and look at more innovative offerings around a user-pay model with our vendors, so we can share the risk and reward and allow us to grow together," Mr Major said.

Telstra Corp.