Keeping construction moving: BAM boosts data resilience and cuts costs with Veeam

Millions of people rely on buildings and infrastructure developed by  BAM each day, from sustainable new-build homes to bridges, motorways, and energy grids.  

As a digitally driven construction leader, BAM faces heightened cyber risk due to its involvement in critical projects and infrastructure. High-profile initiatives and the company’s role in maintaining essential services make it an attractive target for sophisticated threat actors. With its ongoing shift toward cloud technologies to improve agility, BAM recognized the need for a modern, resilient approach to safeguarding data and operations.. 

“We take cyber threats very seriously, and protecting against ransomware is currently our top priority,” said Jeremy Mumford, Global Director of IT Infrastructure at Royal BAM Group. “We’ve built very robust defenses with multiple layers of protection, but if an attack was to penetrate those defenses, we’d need to recover very quickly.”

For BAM, the stakes of downtime are high, since even small project delays can send costs soaring. A breach or outage could also expose the company to regulatory penalties and reputational damage. And as construction grows increasingly digital and technology-driven, BAM must secure critical assets spanning building information modelling (BIM) applications, drone-captured site data, and the full spectrum of tools transforming modern construction.

“Maintaining high data availability and integrity has become even more important as we embrace digitization and a cloud-first strategy,” said Mumford. “Our aim is to run as much in the cloud as possible. As we pursued our cloud strategy, we looked to unify and simplify data resilience. BAM is at the forefront of construction innovation, so any data resilience solution we selected needed to keep pace with our rapid evolution.”  

Following a rigorous selection process, BAM chose Veeam to support a reimagined data resilience strategy. Veeam gives the company the agility to scale its environment and explore new architectural models. Through the Veeam Enterprise License Program (ELP), BAM gains access to all Veeam products under a single contract, flexible licensing, and via a self-service interface. 

“Veeam allowed us to rationalize our fragmented data resilience environment,” said Mumford. “It covers the full scope of our operations and provides complete backup and disaster recovery capabilities in a single platform. We can scale our environment up and down or even left and right across different cloud and on-premises platforms, and we know Veeam will keep it all protected.”

BAM worked closely with the Veeam Technical Account Manager (TAM) Service to ensure a smooth deployment, especially in securing the company’s Microsoft Entra ID landscape. Here, Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Entra ID addressed an important gap in the company’s data and identity resilience strategy. BAM uses Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 to protect ever-growing amounts of Microsoft 365 data, including Outlook emails, Teams conversations, and SharePoint documents. 

"The thing that kept me awake at night was Entra ID and the fact that we only had basic protection through the native Microsoft tooling,” said Mumford. “Entra ID was the first thing we backed up with Veeam, and I’ve had no more sleepless nights since then. Now that both our Microsoft 365 and Entra ID environments are safeguarded with Veeam, we have added layers of protection in case things go wrong. We also have the Veeam TAM Service on tap to ensure that we continue to get the best out of our Veeam solutions. We expect the TAM’s proactive support, management, and expertise to pay dividends as we hone our data resilience strategy." 

Consolidating to a single data resilience platform, including Veeam Data Cloud Vault to store backups, has delivered substantial efficiency gains while strengthening BAM’s cyber-security posture. From reducing the administrative burden to simplifying compliance, Veeam is providing a rapid return on investment. 

“We estimate that building a centralized data resilience platform based on Veeam has saved us 35-40%,” said Mumford. “Veeam immutable backups give us another layer of cyber-protection, while Veeam’s Rapid Recovery feature enables near-instant recovery of data and systems. We now have clear visibility into the resilience status of our entire IT estate. We’ve also streamlined audit and compliance processes, with Veeam providing a single source for evidence gathering and reporting. Finally, we benefit from storing our backups in Veeam Data Cloud Vault, which we know is kept patched and optimized without us having to worry about it.” 

Demonstrable data resilience through Veeam also gives BAM a vital strategic edge. “Certifications such as ISO 27001, which require proven defense and recovery capabilities, are now prerequisites for securing contracts with many government bodies and private sector clients,” said Mumford. “The same rigorous standards apply to obtaining affordable cyber insurance, which has become essential as cyberattacks grow in scale and sophistication. With Veeam, it’s much easier for us to pass this high bar.”

Veeam is playing a vital role in ensuring BAM's data resilience capabilities evolve alongside its rapid pace of innovation. “Construction has become much more data-driven, from design through delivery, and BAM is at the leading edge of that transformation,” said Mumford. “Veeam ensures we have uninterrupted access to the data our projects depend on, which is crucial to keeping our sites operational and our clients satisfied.”

• 35-40% reduction in data resilience costs
  Replacing multiple data backup and recovery solutions with a single Veeam solution has reduced BAM’s IT expenses, freeing capital for strategic investment elsewhere.
• Makes it easier to secure key certifications
  “With Veeam, we can prove that we have our bases covered when it comes to data resilience,” said Mumford. “This makes it far easier to acquire essential certifications and insurance, which are now prerequisites for doing business as a modern construction company.”
• Delivers effective protection that keeps pace with construction digitization
  The sector’s adoption of new technologies generates enormous amounts of data, from sources like drone footage, AI-powered monitoring and inspection, and virtual models. Veeam ensures it all remains robustly protected.