Posted by Wim Roose, Head of IT at Vooruit

Editor's note: Today we hear from Wim Roose, Head of IT at Vooruit, Belgium’s most culturally significant arts centre, as he describes how Google Apps has given it the freedom to develop and grow while remaining true to its values. With 80 members of staff, hundreds of artists and countless partners to manage each year, communication and collaboration has become key to running the centre efficiently without losing the essential spirit of the organisation.


Vooruit is a unique place, not least because of its rich history and visionary objectives and aims. Can you tell us a little about its history and vision?

Vooruit was originally designed and built in 1914 as a festival and arts centre. It had a ballroom, a cinema and a theatre, as well as exhibition spaces and venues for debates and meetings. It quickly became the epicentre of the Ghent-based labor movement, and the building itself became a symbol of the socialist movement in the interwar period. Even the name Vooruit itself means “cooperative.” Although it was abandoned and fell into disrepair, it was regenerated in the early 1980s by a group of friends who wanted to re-establish its significance and honour its history, and that’s what we still do today.

We welcome around 300,000 visitors a year and host up to 600 events annually, meaning there’s something for everyone. We’re incredibly aware of the role we’re playing in Vooruit’s continuing history to provide arts services to the public, which is why we were determined to find a 21st Century IT solution that would allow us to work in the spirit of creativity, collaboration and cooperation that shaped the original Vooruit.

Tell us why you chose Google Apps to help deliver Vooruit’s objectives.

Google Apps was an intuitive choice. As an IT guy, I love the openness of the Google ecosystem. We wanted to find a way of working that suited the company’s ethos rather than working against it, something that would allow us to work freely and collaboratively instead of having to conform.

We also needed something that would support our organic growth and help us meet the efficiency needs of the modern world, and Google’s cloud-based apps do just that. Our building may be historic but the way we work needs to be as efficient and modern as any business operating today. In fact, our investment in a digital office was necessary as well as logical — if we’re to continue to work with the government and other organisations to deliver public arts and culture services, we need to be compatible with their way of working, but without compromising our own values. Google Apps make that possible.

Can you explain how you use Google Apps to increase efficiencies?

As opposed to working in the limiting and closed building automation system we largely relied on before, the Google ecosystem allows us to integrate everything into one interface, and for me that’s a giant step forward.

Gmail was the starting point for our digital revolution, and underpins how we work. We’ve migrated all 100 members of our staff from Outlook to Gmail, and we now send and receive up to 12,000 emails each month. Many of us now use Google Keep to create our “to do” lists, which means we can work collaboratively on projects with ease. The continuous updates to each project list allow us to work together with maximum efficiency, meaning no more duplication of effort or jobs left undone, as we all share access to the same real-time information. Gmail also allows us to track communications more effectively, and we can now communicate with each other — and artists and external partners — much more easily.

You’ve said that Vooruit is all about collaboration and cooperation — how does Google Apps help support this?

Google Drive has also been an integral part of our digital solution, and we now have around 25,000 files stored in the cloud, including Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. It’s been fundamental in terms of allowing access to information freely and easily. The planning of exhibitions and projects is a core part of what we do, but our existing planning software had limited document storage capacity. We now use Drive next to the planning software, which not only acts as a file server, but also a new way of communicating via the files themselves. We can upload all the relevant information for any one project in one place, which can be accessed wherever we are thanks to the cloud storage, meaning it’s much easier to work together.

The use of Google Docs has also revolutionised our way of working with others. We were at a point where some people were working in the cloud and some were saving documents locally, so all our assets were everywhere but nowhere at the same time. It was a mess — we couldn’t find anything when we needed it. Now we have single documents stored in one place, annotated with comments that allow us to communicate with project managers, contractors, suppliers and building guards. The fact that colleagues and partners can all access the same Google Docs and update information simultaneously has made us instantly more efficient and collaborative.

What about communicating outside the core Vooruit team? How has Google Apps helped Vooruit to integrate with the wider world?

We’re already ahead of the communications curve by using Hangouts instead of arranging meetings in person. Our aim is to reduce our environmental impact as an organisation, and not driving 100km to a meeting with an external partner can really contribute towards meeting our green targets. Daily meetings with artists and cultural organisations from across the world are also now possible without leaving our desks, broadening our reach and our potential, as well as saving us time and money.

What does the future hold for Vooruit in terms of IT?

Google Apps is key in helping us create a modern way of working that will grow with us, providing us with the flexibility to be creative as well as the efficiencies we need to succeed commercially. We’re constantly evolving while remaining true to our philosophy and we needed the fundamental change that would enable our organisation to be ready for the future and appeal to new recruits, artists and partners. Google’s cloud-based solutions have helped us prove that, as an arts organisation, we’re as willing and prepared to work digitally as any other industry, without having to compromise Vooruit’s original creative or collaborative values in the digital age.

Posted by Josh Smith, Product Manager

(Cross-posted on the Google Drive Blog)

Innovation is critical for business success, so we're constantly trying to build tools that enable our customers to do more. Starting today, you can use Natural Language Processing (NLP) and other new and improved features in Drive search on web to find files easier and faster. You'll also see a couple of highly-requested Google Docs features that have been added based on your feedback (thank you!).

Search faster and with ease Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a fancy way of saying “search like you talk.” You can type things like “find my budget spreadsheet from last December” or “show me presentations from Anissa.” Drive will understand what you mean and give you the option to click for those specific search results. Drive NLP will get better with each query — so keep on searching. ;)

Get help with speling — er, spelling
When you're trying to find a doc fast, it's easy for typos to slip into your search. Drive now has a new autocorrect feature that suggests corrections to misspelled search terms — which can really help when your brain is moving faster than your fingers.

Enjoy other updates based on your feedback We’ve also added a few small but mighty features in Google Docs to help you create your best work:

• You can now easily split your document into multiple columns in Docs. Just choose “Columns” in the “Format” drop-down menu when you need more formatting options to get your point across.
• We know that work happens in all types of file formats. So, when you open, convert and edit non-Google files in Docs, Sheets and Slides, we’ll now save a copy for you. Just view or download the non-Google source file in its original format directly from Revision History in Docs, Sheets and Slides on the web.

These features are available globally and will roll out gradually starting today. As always, tell us what you think about these new features on Google+ and Twitter. We’re listening.

Posted by Nan Boden, Head of Global Technology Partners


Today, we announced a partnership with Box to power collaboration and productivity for businesses of all sizes. As part of this partnership, Box will integrate with Google Docs and Google Springboard to deliver a seamless experience for working and collaborating in the cloud.

The integration between Box and Google Docs will enable Box to act as a third-party repository for Docs, Sheets and Slides, allowing users to create and collaboratively edit Google Docs directly from Box.

We’re also working together to integrate Box with Google Springboard, which connects people and information with Google-powered search and intelligence. Through this integration, Springboard will help users find the right information at the right time, no matter where it’s hosted — in Gmail, Drive, Docs or in Box.

We want our customers to have flexibility in their choice of tools and to have the most productive and collaborative suite possible for their needs. In fact, several of our own customers, like Avago, Intuit, Internet2 and Whirlpool already use Box and Google together, and these integrations will contribute to a more productive and collaborative enterprise. We’re excited to partner closely with Box to expand our efforts in the enterprise and transform how businesses work in the cloud.

Posted by Mike Hincks, Director of IT Infrastructure at Vivint Solar

Editor's note: Today we hear from Mike Hincks, Director of IT Infrastructure at Vivint Solar, a leading provider of residential solar power in North America. The fast-moving enterprise is using Google Apps, along with Dialpad, to drive collaboration and support for a workforce that's 63% remote. Register here to join our YouTube Live event on September 15 at 10 a.m. to learn more about how Dialpad, a Recommended for Google Apps Technology Partner, can modernize your IT strategy to support the anywhere worker.


Vivint Solar’s mission is to flip the switch on how the world consumes power. With millions of homeowners adopting solar for economic and environmental benefits, our workforce has rapidly grown to nearly 4,000 employees spread across 51 offices.

Much of that growth has been within our mobile workforce. Today, about 63% of our employees work remotely. Our sales professionals and technicians are constantly on the road building relationships with customers, and they need the right technology to ensure that they’re able to get their jobs done as efficiently as possible.

We turned to Dialpad to eliminate the hurdles of traditional voice technology, which can include multiple steps to reach successful deployment and ongoing maintenance challenges.

Integrating communications and productivity in the cloud with easy access to Gmail, Calendar and Docs across every device
Dialpad’s pure-cloud communications solution directly ties voice, video and messaging with Google Apps. Our mobile workforce immediately saw increased productivity once we made the switch. To get started, employees downloaded the Dialpad app, which automatically synced their meetings, emails and shared documents from Gmail, Calendar and Drive. The fact that it works across laptops, tablets and mobile devices (not just a desk phone) frees our workforce to work where and when they want.

Dialpad’s native integration with Google Apps allowed us to connect two mission-critical tools, and now our mobile workers can get their jobs done faster and more efficiently. When employees log in with their Google credentials to view recent emails, shared documents and upcoming calendar events, they get insights and rich context right from the Dialpad app.

In addition, Dialpad syncs with Google’s global company directory, so employee contact information is always up-to-date. And if an employee needs to call a colleague or customer, they can click-to-call with Dialpad straight from Gmail.

A simple deployment of scalable, high-value technology, without the overhead
Our transition to a pure-cloud communications platform with Dialpad and Google has resulted in significant cost savings and impactful productivity gains. For example, our prior telephony system needed a team of five people to manage and administer it full-time. Now, one employee spends only 5% of their time managing our new system.

Traditional IT voice systems come with hundreds of thousands of dollars in yearly infrastructure and hosting costs, while modern competitors require significant professional services just to get the product up and running. Dialpad, by contrast, had no upfront capital expenditures or ongoing maintenance costs. When switching to Dialpad, we were able to get our communications network deployed in just a couple of days without the high upfront costs — and Google Apps integrated instantly.

As our business continues to grow, both tools will scale seamlessly and neither requires the purchase of new IT infrastructure.

An empowered workforce that collaborates freely

A pure cloud stack lets employees get work done from anywhere. At Vivint Solar, our customer success managers need to connect with technicians in the field, but are based in our office headquarters. Before Dialpad and Google, it was a significant challenge for these different groups to maintain close relationships or communicate at a suitable time. Now, managers can resolve issues or bridge conversations using group messaging or SMS.

By integrating our core communications and productivity tools in the cloud, Vivint Solar has enabled an agile and deeply connected workforce that can collaborate from anywhere. It has created a new kind of business dialogue. Whether employees are local or remote, Dialpad and Google Apps make it easy to bridge voice with productivity and build a connected, more efficient workforce.

Posted by Daniel Durgan, IT Business Partner at ISG

Editor's note: Today we hear from Daniel Durgan, IT Business Partner at ISG, an international construction services company delivering fit out, construction, engineering services and a range of specialist solutions. Daniel explains why there’s never been a better time to digitally transform the construction industry.

The construction industry is undergoing a digital revolution. Companies that have for decades relied heavily on printed contracts, drawings and documents are now moving to online tools to save time and money and keep productivity up in a marketplace that’s more expansive and more demanding. At ISG, we’re using Google’s cloud-based tools to ensure that we’re at the forefront of this industry shift.

With Google Apps, we’re taking full advantage of technology-enhanced collaboration, productivity and mobility. Over the course of a few hours, I can use Google Drive to review a presentation on my tablet, Gmail to check emails and Google Calendar to schedule meetings on my phone while away from the office. I can also jump into a meeting with colleagues from around the world from any of the 26 Chromeboxes that are set up in one of our conference rooms. Whether I’m on a site visit, in the office or on the move, Google Apps allows me to continue working and collaborating with my team.

Projects move fast with real-time collaboration It’s essential for our business to control who has access to certain documents. Drawings must only be issued to authorised people, and each person must review the latest version as it’s being developed. Drive enables us to completely control what’s shared inside and outside of our company — the fact that our team alone has 1.5 million files in Drive speaks to our reliance on the tool for secure file storage.

Google Docs allows us to collaborate on shared documents at the same time, no matter where we are in the world. I can start shaping up a proposal in London and invite a colleague in Europe to work on it with me. There’s also more of a human element. When someone comments, you see their face next to it — it ties you emotionally to the process. We keep track of all our revisions in Sheets to monitor our progress. And we can always instant message each other with quick questions or suggestions, so we feel connected, all the time.

A lot of what we do is very visual. It’s hard to describe building plans and designs over the phone. With Hangouts, we can bring everyone together to discuss these plans and drawings as if we were all in the same room. We can move quickly from stakeholders to contractors to suppliers to make sure the right people are involved in the right conversations.

Staff expect more from an IT solution A big part of my team’s role is to help build relationships and ensure employees communicate effectively and get the support they need. When we sent out a survey using Forms to ask all our staff what they’d like to see from IT, they told us they wanted to find out more about our Google tools. We’re using Synergise Google Apps Training to help our stakeholders go beyond the basics and use the suite to its full potential.

Quality: getting it right the first time Quality is extremely important in our business, so we carry out frequent on-site check-ins to ensure teams are following the proper processes and delivering a high standard of construction correctly the first time. When we do these quality checks, we submit recommendations and observations using Forms on Android tablets. The information is imported into Sheets, and using Apps Script, we create dashboards, so employees across teams and functions can easily track the check-ins in real time.

We’re improving the way we work all the time, and that’s thanks to the support and enthusiasm of our employees. Many of our automated solutions have been suggested by them, and it’s great to see how passionate they are about Google Apps. There’s also an excitement among my team around what the future holds for us and our industry with new tools at our dispense and a new way of working for our customers.

Editor's note: Today we speak with Kyle Coleman, Director of Sales Development and Kelly Payne, Customer Programs Manager at Looker, a data analytics software company that makes deep data understandable and useable for business teams. Looker uses Google Apps and Asana to track and collaborate on all their work.

Can you tell us about Looker and why the company needed collaboration and productivity tools?
Kelly: Our team at Looker is building software that helps business teams find, explore and understand the data that matters to them. As a fast growing startup, we think a lot about scaling our team and processes effectively and efficiently. We need the right tools do this well.

Why Google Apps?
Kyle: We’re heavy users of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. We can easily share our work cross-functionally and always feel confident that the person we’re working with has the most up-to-date version.
Kelly: We’re constantly pulling up a Google Doc to have everyone work from the same place at the same time. There’s a huge benefit to having our work and discussions update in real time and to easily share what we’re working on with anyone in our organization.

How and why does your team use Asana?
Kyle: We use Asana for important cross-functional workflows like new hire on-boarding, sales development and for almost all of our marketing team’s work. From campaign management to launches, every piece of content we publish — whether video, customer case study or blog post — is tracked in Asana. There’s so many moving pieces involved in a complex and collaborative workflow; Asana lets us track every detail.
Kelly: With Asana, we can more easily keep track of who's doing what, and stay updated on the progress of projects. As we’ve grown, Asana has helped us identify how repeated tasks can become standardized processes. Developing process standards brings the clarity and accountability that help us work together well.

How are you using Asana and Google Apps together?
Kelly: We're always linking our docs, spreadsheets or slide decks into our Asana tasks, which is easy to do with the Asana and Google Drive integration. Asana is where we make our work actionable, so the task becomes the place where all the relevant information is stored. Connecting Google and Asana makes it easy to ensure that everyone’s working out of the right documents. We’ve added a good deal of efficiency to our workflow by not duplicating efforts across teams.

How has productivity improved on your team by integrating Asana and Google apps?
Kyle: Two things that matter deeply to us as a growing team are productivity and priorities. Having everything in the same central place saves us so much time as a team, and Google Apps and Asana have given everyone a sense of what they need to be working on and when.

You mentioned that you’re constantly working collaboratively at Looker. How does using Google and Asana side by side make working together easier?
Kelly: With these tools that we’re now using, it’s so much easier to be collaborative and build a sense of trust and empowerment within our team. Whether we’re making a comment in a Google Doc or “hearting” someone’s task in Asana, we’re having a lot more fun moving our work forward together.

We hope you’ve enjoyed reading about how Looker makes work fun and collaborative using Google Apps with Asana. You can learn more and enable Asana in your Google Apps account by visiting their application listing in the Google Apps Marketplace.

Posted by Dan Tisone, VP of Global IT, BioDot

Editor's note: Today we hear from Dan Tisone, VP of Global IT at BioDot, a low volume dispensing manufacturer specializing in biotech applications. Learn how BioDot’s 60 employees use Android and Chrome devices to work closely together and build better products.


I’ve led IT at BioDot since my father, a former research and development engineer at Nokia Bell Labs, founded the company in 1994. Since then, I’ve seen workplace technology evolve from clunky desktops and servers to the fast, cloud-based devices we use today.

Our transition to Google started with Gmail in 2009. Through Gmail we discovered Google Apps like Drive, Hangouts and Docs. Google Apps are affordable and easy to use, so when we needed to purchase computers and smartphones for our employees the following year, we chose Google Chrome and Android products. Today, we have 42 Android smartphones, as well as a few dozen Chromebooks and Chromeboxes.

As an international business headquartered in Southern California with satellite offices in Asia and Europe, our sales team travels a great deal, and tends to use their smartphones more than laptops, whether they’re at the airport, in between meetings or in a taxi. They use Google Docs to review contracts and Google Slides to create new business presentations from their Android phones while traveling. They can even update Pipedrive, our CRM platform, through the mobile app.

I install work apps on each device using Google Mobile Device Management so employees can access required work apps and install any other pre-approved apps from the Play for Work Store. I can securely manage all devices with this central console, too. If an employee accidentally installs an app or downloads malware, I receive an alert and can fix the problem immediately.

Setting up Chromebooks is simple, too. It used to take me hours to deploy our old laptops. Each Chromebook takes minutes to set up — no time-consuming installations required. As BioDot’s sole IT staff member, it can be difficult to quickly deploy new devices while ensuring the security of every company device around the world. Chrome makes this easier.

Cloud-based Android devices also foster a collaborative work environment. For example, when the manufacturing team is assembling a new medical dispenser in the factory, they mark up the schematic diagram in red pen to show which parts don’t work. They used to snail-mail this marked up diagram to our engineers, who are hundreds or thousands of miles away in an office. Now, the manufacturing team snaps a picture of the schematic with their Android phone and uploads it to Google Drive, so engineers can see their revisions immediately. This saves our teams a few days’ delay, so they can iterate faster, and ultimately build better products in a shorter timeframe.

Google Apps also allows us to be more productive and efficient. Instead of taking a one-day trip to meet with a prospect for the first time, sales executives are starting to use Google Hangouts. This saves our company around $1,000 for each trip. When you think about the hundreds of trips salespeople take throughout the year, these savings go a long way — especially for a small company.

Switching to Google Apps, and subsequently Chrome and Android devices helps BioDot run faster and more smoothly. Employees, from tech-savvy millennials to employees who were new to smartphones, now rely on Android and Chrome devices to work together and complete tasks, whether they’re in the office, on the road or at one of our manufacturing facilities.

Posted by Chris Hewertson, CTO of glh

Editor's note: Today’s post is from Chris Hewertson, CTO of glh, the largest owner-operator hotel company in London with over 5,000 rooms throughout London as well as two locations in Malaysia. Chris was recently named “disruptive player in the crowded hotels market” in the CIO top 100 list. Here, he shares his secrets to success.


In 2013, we launched the world’s fastest hotel wi-fi and put our focus on digital. We had big ideas to transform our business, and we knew we couldn’t do it alone.

We’re always looking for new and innovative technology solutions that can help us deliver the best guest-centred experience in hospitality. Hosted services and real-time responses are becoming more and more of a basic customer expectation in other industries so we thought, why not hotels? We worked with implementation partner Cloudreach to adopt Google Apps as our fully integrated, enterprise-wide cloud collaboration and storage solution.

Let product enthusiasts within your teams help usher a smooth adoption With over 33 hotels, more than 1000 users and nearly 4 million files, how were we going to move everything and everyone onto Google Apps for Work? The answer was obvious – Jedis.

Well, not Jedis exactly, but pretty close. Our nominated Google Guides were a group of 65 champions across all our locations and departments – from night managers to head housekeepers – who helped kick-start our Google Apps for Work adoption. Their support and enthusiasm for the tools meant we could truly bring Google Apps for Work into every part of our business.

Not only did they help us cut down old and unused data as part of the migration process (we have now almost halved our original 3 million files), they encouraged everyone to use the tools for creative solutions. This is a great example of how a user led change approach can lead to high levels of engagement and adoption while minimising the need for a traditional data migration.

Find creative ways to use new tools to improve customer experience At glh, we take guest complaints seriously and try to accommodate each request as much as we can. At our biggest hotel, room moves and changes happen daily. Guests move rooms to be closer to their travelling party, away from their boss (yes, really) or even to avoid odd numbers.

Before Google, this would cause major disruption across a number of teams from Housekeeping to Concierge. Now, all teams can see and edit real-time room changes in Sheets, and housekeepers can even use it on their mobiles. As a result, we’ve significantly minimized delays, confusion and complaints.

From internal invites to office polls, Forms has been a welcome addition to the working lives of all of us at glh. Now we have a form that allows staff to check out a guest from anywhere in the hotel in seconds. No more printed paper that was popped into a box at reception.

Invest big savings from new technology tools into workplace improvements Trans-atlantic Hangout conversations have led to a 42% reduction in conference call charges. Hourly printouts of various logs and reports of over 1,000 pages are now shareable digital Docs that are securely stored on Drive. The logs are updated in real time and available on any device.

It’s just over a year since we introduced Google Apps for Work, and in that time we’ve made so many apps-based ideas a reality – like our Manager of the Month initiative, where everyone votes using a Form.

Our Google Guides, who were so central to our training and awareness a year ago, are still coming up with new suggestions all the time – it’s amazing how creative people can be.

Posted by Robert Cheetham, Founder and CEO, Azavea


Editor's note: Today we hear from Robert Cheetham, founder and CEO of Philadelphia-based geospatial web software and analysis firm Azavea. Read about how Azavea has relied on Google for Work tools for more than eight years and recently started using Chromebox for meetings and Chromebooks so employees can work together from anywhere.

When I founded Azavea in 2000, I dreamed of creating a great work environment focused on driving social impact by applying geospatial technology. We're a certified B Corporation, and our mission-driven work includes climate change, elections, public safety, transit, water infrastructure and natural resources. Inspired by my first job working for a local government agency in Japan, where cubicles don’t exist, I designed our workspace to have an open layout, long before it became popular in contemporary offices. Today, we rely on Google Apps, Chromebooks and Chromebox for meetings to support this collaborative environment and help us work closely together on our software and data analytics projects.

In the early years, when Azavea only had a handful of employees, we installed basic workplace software from a CD-ROM and had limited server space. When we outgrew our email system in 2008, we chose Gmail. Our employees quickly started using Google Calendar, Docs, Hangouts and Sheets because they integrate so closely with Gmail. These tools helped us work effectively together on projects, so it was a natural next step.

In 2012, our software developers started asking for supplementary computers to let them work from home, when traveling for client meetings or even in the office kitchen. We looked into tablets, but they were expensive and didn’t have fully functional keyboards. As longtime Google users, our Operations team investigated options from Google.

Chromebooks are fast, affordable, secure and remarkably powerful, so we started offering them as supplementary devices for people who wanted more mobility. Our colleagues can easily switch between their main workstations and portable Chromebooks, and the long-lasting battery makes them the perfect companion for frequent travelers, office roamers and remote employees. I typically travel for a week each month myself, so I use my Chromebook on long flights as well as meetings and conferences where there may not be convenient power. It typically lasts more than nine hours, while a laptop only lasts two or three.

The company now has more than fifty people, and when we moved to a new office a few months ago, we needed a videoconferencing solution for a dozen new meeting rooms, we once again turned to Google and picked Chromebox for meetings. Like the other Google products we use, Chromebox is affordable, easy to install and integrates with our existing workplace software, like Hangouts and Calendar. Anyone can quickly set up and join a meeting. As a small firm, this ease of use is critical for us — we don’t have a team of dedicated IT staff, so we don’t have capacity to constantly deal with technical difficulties or high-maintenance updates.

I wanted to start a company that felt like a community and made an impact. Over the past several years, Google has significantly enhanced our company’s operations because their products simply work and easily scale as the company has grown. Our teams are able to work effectively together, no matter where we are.

Posted by Koen Bosmans, Senior System Administrator/Service Desk Team Lead, Tessenderlo, Belgium

Editor's note: Today we hear from Koen Bosmans, Senior Systems Administrator at Melexis, a microelectronics supplier based in Tessenderlo, Belgium. One of the world’s top producers of sensors and microchips for the automotive industry, Melexis is expanding into new industries, with great success. Spread across 11 offices in nine countries, read how this truly global company uses Google Apps for Work to build its international team.

There’s a good chance you’ve used one of our products without realising it. The sophisticated microchips we make are in everything from children’s ear thermometers, to airbags, to smartphones, to drones. And as the demand for microelectronics has grown, so has our business: Melexis shares are worth 20 times more now than when I started working here in 1999, and today we employ 1,200 staff worldwide in Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Switzerland, China, Malaysia, the Ukraine and the US. As early as 2010, we could see that this rapid expansion might lead to “silo thinking” that prevents outstanding engineers in different countries from working together effectively in a global team. That’s why Melexis management asked me to research alternatives to the open-source software we were using.

I ranked five IT solutions on 25 criteria — including web accessibility, document sharing and OS compatibility — and Google Apps for Work came out on top. We bought 500 accounts and got ready to deploy them over 13 weeks. But after the first fortnight, I realised that Google Apps training was so straightforward I could ask a student working in my department to do it. He travelled the world for three months and trained the entire company.

Google Apps improves staff satisfaction with their work environment and rewards teamwork. In the first quarter after we switched to Gmail, the number of complaints about email dropped by 65%. No more spam or slow webmail, and Calendar has ended confusion over meeting room bookings. Expansion is much easier, too; instead of having to install servers and data lines in every new office, all we need is an internet connection. Plus, we can expand without asking engineers to relocate, since as part of a virtual team, they can talk to colleagues anywhere in the world over Hangouts while working together on a shared document in Sheets. And wherever we are, Drive saves time by letting colleagues work simultaneously on single documents — whether it’s our R&D teams collecting test data in Sheets, or the IT team preparing a presentation on Slides for our monthly meeting.

Through my experience using Google Apps within our IT team, I understand how something as simple as face-to-face contact through Hangouts can make a team so much stronger. My IT Service Desk team is made up of eight people split over six locations, and we meet every two days on Hangouts to discuss work. I noticed that seeing each other so often created a relaxed and friendly dynamic that made it easier to share advice and help each other.

At Melexis, we don’t just work hard, we play hard, too. Fun is part of our DNA, and three years ago, we invited everyone to take part in an international computer game LAN party. We’ve been doing it every year since, and it’s always a great opportunity to get to know each other across different locations.

Google Apps makes these international LAN parties possible. Staff use Forms to sign up for some of the four or five games we’ll be playing in competition, and we organise times and equipment through a community on Google+. Presentations on Slides explain what we’re doing, and we use Sheets to keep score.

The party starts at 6pm on a Friday. In each office, staff decorate a room, put on fancy dress, and set up a Hangout between all the offices, even our senior leaders get dressed up and take part! Projection screens, microphones and speakers let the offices communicate with each other while the organisers announce gaming fixtures. Our scoreboard is in Sheets, which automatically updates its graphs with all the new information from every match.

In the first year, we had 120 participants, and that number’s been going up every year since. We’ve even given out best-dressed awards for themes from Halloween to superheroes.

Now, when I travel between our offices in different countries, staff walk up to tell me how good the LAN parties are for the company and morale. But there’s no question that combining our talents and pulling together through technology, wherever we are, lies at the heart of our global success.

Posted by Jan Castelijns, Head of Systems Engineering and IT Operations, Travix, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Editor's note: Today we hear from Jan Castelijns, Head of Systems Engineering and IT Operations at Travix, a global online travel technology company that sells low fare flight tickets to 2.5 million passengers from 28 countries every year. Founded in 2011, Travix has rapidly built up a network of 500 staff in seven offices worldwide. Read why they chose Google Apps as the IT infrastructure behind their rapid expansion.


When Travix started out in 2011, it was through the merger of three companies. We gained strength from that diversity, but we also inherited three corporate IT systems. So the first thing the CEO asked me to do when I joined was to find one system we could use across the whole company. He recommended Microsoft Office 365, but implementing it was more demanding than anyone had expected. Months into the process, I went back to him with a realistic projection of the time and resources necessary to finish the rollout, and a recommendation that we put the project on hold. The hunt began for alternatives. That’s where Google Apps came in.

Google Apps is perfectly suited for an expanding global business. We have offices in Amsterdam, Oosterhout, Berlin, Bangalore, Singapore, California and London, and in all of these places, Office 365 required infrastructure modifications before implementation. By contrast, Google Apps was ready to go right out of the box.

Our corporate IT systems need to be quick, reliable and safe, with a minimum of costs and management overhead. Google Apps costs less to implement, less to maintain and allows greater contractual flexibility than Office 365. Because Google Apps is also entirely cloud based, we don’t need to install servers, as recommended in the hybrid server-cloud Office 365 solution. In fact, Google Apps allowed the decommissioning of 10 existing servers, each of which is priced at $3,000.

Rolling out Google Apps took just six weeks. g-company led training with one-on-one sessions for executives, small workshops for staff and even presentations over Hangouts for our Bangalore team. But key to our rapid deployment were the “ambassadors” – staff prepared to support their colleagues when Google Apps went live. After setting up our systems engineers on Google Apps, I sent out a Form for people to register as ambassadors and the response was overwhelming: 104 people signed up for 50 positions. This was a clear sign for us that our people were willing to embrace this change and make this transition work.

At Travix, we already worked with other Google products in particular fields, like Google Analytics and Google Adwords in marketing and Google BigQuery and kubernetes in engineering. Now we have Google Apps for everyone.

Staff here have become very enthusiastic about Google Apps, as they see how the tools fit into their working lives. Gmail, Calendar and Hangouts let staff stay on top of their work anytime, from anywhere. Rather than book meeting rooms through a separate app, now everything is on Calendar, saving time and hassle. Drive has been organically and rapidly adopted across the organisation, and Forms has been a huge success that we didn’t even plan for. Instead of starting a gigantic email thread or using a free survey tool found on the internet, we now use the simple Forms interface to get swift feedback, with answers fed directly into Sheets for analysis.

Hangouts in particular has changed the way we communicate, whether through the efficiency of instant messaging or by working more closely with colleagues abroad. Hangouts on Air allows staff in other offices to participate in our CEO’s presentations in Amsterdam, and because the stream is recorded, engineers in Bangalore and California can watch it too, despite the time difference. Collaboration between team members no longer requires a kind of “email ping pong” and stressful version control. We can just open Hangouts and Drive and go through a document together, whether an engineering design in Docs, a marketing product plan on Slides, or details of a tender on Sheets.

A growing global technology company demands an IT solution that works in any location, on any device. On top of that, it has to be cost-effective, easy to maintain and ready to use in short time. It’s my job to provide that for my colleagues. With Google Apps, that’s exactly what we’ve got.

Posted by Paul Hsu, Chief Operating Officer at Fancy

Editor's note: Today we hear from Paul Hsu, Chief Operating Officer at Fancy, which uses Google Apps with ProsperWorks CRM to help manage merchant partnerships, gain transparency into sales team activity and optimize their internal processes. Register here to join our Hangout on Air on June 14 at 9 a.m. to learn more about how ProsperWorks, a Google recommended app, can improve your business.

Fancy, the place to discover, engage with and buy goods from top brands, works with trendsetters and tastemakers to curate thousands of goods. Keeping track of new merchant product launches can get complicated, but Google Apps helps ease the coordination process. For example, we often need to schedule last minute meetings to review products that we want to feature at the start of every day. We use Calendar to find meeting times that fit our schedules, Drive to share product launch proposals and Sheets to manage product launch timelines. Since Google Apps tools are designed to work and integrate smoothly with one another, running these meetings is a seamless process. We’ve used it heavily since we started the company, and the tools have been vital to our productivity and growth.

Growing with Google With a quickly growing merchant partnership base, we’ve found it increasingly important to keep track of all potential vendors and new interactions. Working with thousands of merchants and even more products, we needed a CRM solution to help scale this part of our business.

Since we were already using Gmail, Calendar, Sheets, Contacts and Drive for most of our operations, we saw ProsperWorks as an effective CRM solution, given how integrated it is with Google’s entire ecosystem of apps.

ProsperWorks with Gmail and Calendar After we integrated the ProsperWorks Chrome extension — which only took a few short hours — our brand development team began using it immediately. They used ProsperWorks to track communications and interactions with merchants in Gmail and identify items that required follow-up. We saw an increase in our team’s productivity and growth in our brand partner network that we directly attributed to this integration.

With easy-to-use and intuitive tools from ProsperWorks, we experienced a significant increase in the number of merchant partnership deals closed due to the ability to better track customers and share real-time information that helped us close deals.

ProsperWorks with Drive and Sheets In addition to the benefits for our brand development team, our executive team gained tremendous insight through ProsperWorks reporting capabilities, which work perfectly with Sheets. ProsperWorks' integration with Sheets allowed our brand development team to simply aggregate, organize and visualize our sales in a single dashboard. This gave us immediate access to important insights, such as those gleaned from comparing pipelines by stage, opportunity assessments, customer types, team workload, monthly team progress and even the status of our leads. We were able to get a bird’s eye view of all our sales pipelines without leaving Google Apps.

Using ProsperWorks with Drive gave us insight into product category gaps that we weren’t pursuing and showed us categories that had more partners than we needed. With ProsperWorks, we were able to easily identify these areas and refine our focus to develop partnerships that would expand our reach into new categories while reducing time spent on categories we had already built out.

Optimizing our brand management team with ProsperWorks and Google Apps for Work On the ground level, our brand management team used ProsperWorks as a way to communicate, manage workflow, manage and assign tasks, share documents and more. Our brand development team has thousands of interactions daily across Gmail, Calendar and Hangouts, and it’s really helpful that on ProsperWorks, the profiles and status of each lead are automatically updated so that every email exchange, event and file is easily accessible by any team member.

Using Google Apps alongside ProsperWorks has helped us optimize the processes of our brand development team and make better decisions faster, which definitely gives us an edge over our competition.

Posted by Andy Coppin, Operations Director at Bartle Bogle Hegarty

Editor's note: Today we hear from Andy Coppin, Operations Director at Bartle Bogle Hegarty, a global advertising agency based in London. Founded in 1982, BBH has twice won Agency of the Year at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival with groundbreaking campaigns for clients including Audi, British Airways, Tesco and Unilever. With offices in London, Los Angeles, New York, Shanghai, Singapore, Mumbai and Stockholm, read how the BBH team uses Google Apps for Work to enhance its global network.


A good idea can cross borders. That’s one reason why we have just one office in each global region, instead of one office in each country like most of our competitors. It keeps campaigns focused and recognises that our adventurous staff see travel as a perk, rather than a chore. So when we overhauled our IT system in 2010, we needed a system that enabled both close international collaboration and great mobility. Google Apps for Work opened up far-reaching creative possibilities that change the way we work.

Mobility we need with lower cost, more dependable tools
Google Apps is ideal for flexible and mobile working. Gmail and Calendar are web-based, so client-facing teams are never out of touch as they travel to meetings abroad. Previously, remotely connecting to our old servers could only be done with an unreliable VPN. It proved to be an expensive liability with a tendency to fail. Drive is not only cheaper, it’s also dependable. The instant messaging function on Hangouts is perfect for teams on the road. Chromebox for meetings has become so powerful and easy to use that it’s entirely superseded the separate video conferencing system we installed five years ago.

Managing IT and administrative controls internally, for faster troubleshooting
The simple administrative interface and modular design of Google Apps for Work means we can solve IT problems internally instead of spending on external support. My colleague Will Triantos, our Global Google Technical Lead, not only administers the entire platform for 1,000 staff in eight offices, he’s also constantly creating new ways of using Google Apps to improve work at BBH. Fast, friendly and comprehensive support from Cloud Technology Solutions (CTS) means all the advice we need is always on-hand. With their support, we migrated our entire Stockholm office to Google Apps in less than a week.

Fostering a culture of creative IT, sharing and efficiency
Using Sites, Drive and Google APIs, Will has created a much-improved new intranet. While our previous intranet was based on servers around the world that cost us £20,000 a year to license, the new intranet is entirely cloud-based, so we don’t pay to maintain our own hardware. Because it uses Sheets to present our global company directory, we can always be confident we have up-to-date contact details for all our offices. With its connections to Drive, we can upload documents like historical advertising pitches in a few seconds, instead of in ten to thirty minutes. And because any of our staff can upload, rather than just one administrator in London, each office can share news and holiday information specific to them. Teams anywhere can access their local Google+ communities or submit Forms to make catering requests from kitchen staff, and users access the intranet with their Google Account single sign on, too, so their Gmail, Calendar and Drive is embedded and only a click away.

Most IT FAQs are answered on our intranet, so Will is free to find other applications for Google Apps. To take a simple example, before new BBH staff arrive at the office, they fill in a Form on Sites that connects to a Sheet in HR, so we have all their details in advance. And at the building entrance they sign-in to a Form on a tablet that emails reception, so the right person can be there to meet them. Small things like that add up, make a great impression and prove that cutting admin in one area frees creative thinking elsewhere.

Posted by Steve Coulbourne, Technical Director, AOL

Editor's note: Today we hear from Steve Coulbourne, technical director at AOL, a global digital media and technology company focused on “Culture and Code.”


I’ve been part of the AOL team for more than 15 years. In that time I’ve seen the technology we use evolve immensely. When I first started, the company had standard desktops and a legacy IT system. Since then, we’ve shifted from clunky hardware and software to “lightweight enterprise” — prioritizing convenient, immediate access and ease of use.

Our CEO, Tim Armstrong, believes that if you keep doing things the same way, you’ll continue to get the same results. We take this philosophy seriously when it comes to our technology. Our global Chief Technology Officer, William Pence, provided clear vision for modern, cloud-based, and forward looking technologies, which propelled our investment and focus in this space. When we decided to start using Google Apps, we were most interested in unifying and improving how we work together across teams — especially between AOL’s different entities.

In recent years, we’ve completed many acquisitions (think Huffington Post, TechCrunch, and the integration of Verizon’s Digital Media Services to name a few). Having Google Apps during the period of potential confusion and chaos has helped us perform due diligence activities even quicker.

We started exploring Google Apps in 2010 and chose it over Office 365 because Microsoft required us to staff a whole team to manage SharePoint and its infrastructure. We also realized that adoption of Google Apps would be easier and more cost effective because of Google’s reputation for ease of use and the familiarity many of our employees already had with its tools.

Over the course of six months, we unified 13 domains into one with help from a third-party integrator to move from Microsoft Exchange to Google. From a set-up perspective, it took about two to three weeks to get everyone up and running with local peer (i.e., collaboration champions) and IT helpdesk support. Employees immediately started sharing their favorite Apps “hacks” with colleagues (for example, we use Google Forms for invite submissions, which alerts employees when events are filled and creates a culture of excitement and inclusion).

As a result, we were able to decommission 18 of our 22 globally distributed Messaging servers (more than 80 percent), eliminating 130 terabytes (TB) of drive space needs. We’re also migrating on-premise file shares into Google Apps, which will allow us to reallocate another 120 TB of file storage.

I led the initiative for company-wide adoption of Google Drive, Docs and Hangouts, and the entire company has been fully migrated since February 2015. With recent acquisitions, we've quickly integrated our collaboration tools to maintain focus on business value and production.

In terms of security (such as granting and denying access to data as needed), we’ve reduced costs. When you’re working in the cloud, there’s no need to bring on a third-party vendor to ensure data is secure. Moving away from premise-based solutions has provided us the flexibility to decrease our acquisition integration timeline from a messaging and collaboration perspective. We’re now able to offer the services of companies we acquire the same day that a deal is signed.

In certain instances, the collaboration capabilities of Google Apps enabled quicker time to market for our products. For example, the content and assets for each morning’s AOL homepage is queued up in real time on Drive. Also, our Business Communications team can edit articles at the same time — greatly reducing time to publication.

With multiple brands under the AOL umbrella, Apps also allows us to be more transparent and give everyone access to files and documents. With Apps, our employees are productive from anywhere — whether it’s on AOL’s campus or on the network — and connected as a unified team.

Posted by Greg Bennett, Imaginea

Editor's note: Today we hear from Greg Bennett of Imaginea Energy, an oil and gas company based in Calgary, Alberta Canada. Learn how Google Apps helps Imaginea defy industry stereotypes as they work to produce energy sustainably, securely and profitably.


At Imaginea Energy, our vision is an Oil and Gas industry that is much better for the Planet, and for People, and for Profits. This vision is reflected in our culture, the mindsets of our people as well as in our organizational model. Together, our organizational model and culture promote curiosity, teamwork and 10X thinking — values that affect everything from our team-driven project pitches, to idea generation to the tools that are integral to creating solutions that match our aspirations, like Google Apps for Work.

We switched from our previous platform because our legacy storage, productivity and email tools didn’t reflect our open and transparent culture or our vision of the future. The closed IT environment made it difficult to collaborate together beyond very small teams: file-sharing was non-existent, which created insane revision situations and confusion about document version control. Google Drive changes all of that. We've migrated nearly 260,000 files to Drive, all of which can be accessed from anywhere, on any device, without deploying a rigid shared drive structure.

Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms have absolutely transformed how we work together. With real-time editing, commenting and data collection, we can quickly share ideas and insights and rapidly move work forward together. At a recent meeting we had over 30 people generate 20 pages of new ideas in under two hours. Seamless collaboration and rapid ideation like this simply wasn’t possible before.

Google Apps for Work combined with our flexible working environment provide maximum autonomy, which our employees leverage to increase their productivity both in and out of the office. Visit our headquarters on a Friday and you might find up to 40% of our people foregoing their commute in favour of working from home (or a coffee shop, or a park). This flexibility really works for our company and our team.

With access to information online or offline, the ability to work remotely extends to the vast 30,000 km2 of rolling prairie that our operations cover. Operators can capture data even without internet access. Once they re-connect, all of their offline work is instantly synced, eliminating redundant data-entry and confusion.

Our ability to work from anywhere has been further enhanced by using Google Hangouts. Whether a field operator is at one of our 600+ active wells or a team member is running a training presentation from 7,000 kms away in Europe, Hangouts connects our people face-to-face. Our field staff have cut down on the 500 km round trip visits to headquarters — now they can spend more time on-site, and less time driving by communicating and holding meeting via Hangouts. Reducing driving time increases the safety of our team, and also reduces our environmental footprint and operating costs.

Not only has switching to Google Apps saved us significant time, it will also reduce our IT spend. By mid-2016, we’ll have saved over 50 percent on IT maintenance, money that can be redeployed to develop solutions to business problems and maximising our team’s capabilities.

Google Apps gives us the security we need without compromising information flow or flexibility. The Admin console lets us customize mobile device management and quickly respond to changing security events. On a recent trip to Paris, a company device was stolen on the subway. Within 12 minutes, access credentials were changed and our data was secured. This security extends behind the scenes to every part of Google Apps. We may never have world-leading security experts on our staff, but luckily we don’t have to: Google does. Having trust in our tools, combined with the trust we invest in our employees, means we can focus on creating value without obsessing over security.

At Imaginea, we defy industry stereotypes by focusing on Planet, People and Profit together. When you set out to reimagine an industry like oil and gas, achieving that vision is only possible with the right people and the right tools. With Google Apps, we’ve set course to truly transform our business and the energy industry.

Posted by Mary Gourley, Google for Work, Public Sector (and proud mum of three)

For all the amazing things mums do, they deserve much more than just one day to recognize their greatness. As Sunday approaches, Google Australia is celebrating an organization that makes Mother’s Day an everyday affair.

St Kilda Mums provides new and pre-loved baby goods to mothers in need. What began as a living room operation seven years ago has grown to four warehouses and more than 1,000 volunteers accepting and distributing nursery gear to thousands of families.



So what’s their secret superpower for supporting thousands of mums across Melbourne? Technology. Products like Google Forms and Drive on mobile devices and desktops allows St Kilda Mums to organise incoming donations and better coordinate logistics across the network of staff, social workers and volunteers. The requests are received instantly in the warehouse, matched with the donated stock and dispatched to the family in need.

We're proud to play a small role in enabling St Kilda Mums through Google Apps for Work. We applaud the staff at St Kilda Mums, volunteers and all the mothers out there who keep the world turning with their love and power. And to all my fellow working mums, you’re my heroes!

Happy Mother’s Day from all of us at Google Australia.

Posted by Bret Knobelauch, Senior Director at ProsperWorks

Editor's note: Today we hear from Bret Knobelauch, Senior Director at ProsperWorks, a SaaS provider of next generation CRM solutions and — along with RingCentral — a Google Apps partner in the Recommended for Google Apps for Work program. Read how this rapidly growing technology company uses Google Apps to radically simplify customer facing sales and communications. And register here to join our Hangout on Air, on March 29 at 9 a.m. and learn how ProsperWorks went all in on the cloud with Google and Ringcentral.


ProsperWorks is the world's first “zero input” CRM. Designed specifically for Google Apps, ProsperWorks helps companies sell faster by identifying, organizing and tracking sales opportunities right in Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Drive. Our company was founded in 2011 with the vision to empower small business sales and marketing with a fantastic user experience for CRM.

Going all-in with Google Apps and the cloud When we started the company, we were already committed to leveraging the benefits of Google to run our business. After all, we build a SaaS CRM solution that is deeply integrated with Google Apps. So, in addition to choosing Gmail as our email platform, we went all in with Google technology for various aspects of our business. This included:

• Google Hangouts to interact with prospects and customers who are Google Apps customers themselves
• Google Drive for onboarding and sharing our sales assets with a rapidly expanding team of sales development reps and account executives
• Google Sheets for exporting and reviewing sales reports using the ProsperWorks integration

We soon discovered the need for not just any, but the right cloud-based, enterprise-class phone solution. There are two key features that our cloud phone solution must have:

• Ability to make and receive calls directly from within Gmail. My sales team spends 60-80% of their day at their desktop engaged in prospecting and sales calls. The ability to make and receive calls directly from a phone number within Gmail and ProsperWorks CRM keeps my team super productive. Plus users can see their communications history including call logs and voicemails, directly from within Gmail.

• Sales call analytics and reporting. From my mobile phone, I can regularly check on the call productivity of the team. For example, I can check on inbound versus outbound calls following the launch of a campaign. I can see trends and intervene if there seems to be an issue that needs to be addressed.

Why we chose RingCentral We switched from a vendor we worked with prior because RingCentral offered the enterprise business capabilities that we truly needed. I’m responsible for our sales development reps and account executives, and call activity is a key measure of productivity. RingCentral has robust call analytics and reporting that helped us gauge and increase productivity.

I didn’t want to take any risks with security and reliability, so the fact that RingCentral had been vetted by Google meant a lot. I also appreciated that RingCentral was an overall leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications in the cloud, and most importantly, the user experience and integration with Google Apps was fantastic.

ProsperWorks’ vision is about simplifying the CRM user experience. RingCentral shares this vision for business communications, and Google shares this vision for work productivity. Google Apps has proven to be a great unifying platform for partner solutions such as ProsperWorks and RingCentral. Empowered by Google Apps and RingCentral, we couldn’t be better equipped to serve and empower our own customers.

Posted by Kenneth Karlsson, IT Manager, GANT AB

Editor's note: Today we hear from Kenneth Karlsson, IT Manager for GANT AB, a multinational clothing company based in Sweden. From its Swedish headquarters and three overseas subsidiaries, GANT coordinates 50 suppliers with 40 franchise partners worldwide to bring its brand of wearable fashion to more than 700 stores around the globe. Read why GANT chose Google Apps for Work to bring this global network together.


When I started work here in the 1980s, GANT was far from being the major multinational brand it is today. And though we’ve always been expanding, we’ve grown at a much faster pace since 2009 – the year we upgraded our communications and transitioned to Google Apps for Work. Since then, GANT and its partners more than doubled our number of stores, opening an additional 392 new stores spread across the world.

We initially switched to Google Apps to replace an email solution that was expensive, overloaded and incompatible with the range of operating systems we used. And with our subsidiaries in Sweden, the US, the UK and France effectively running as separate organisations and without essential collaborative abilities, including shared calendar access, we also had to find a way to come together if we wanted to compete globally. I was convinced that a web-based email platform would be the cost-effective, forward-thinking solution we needed. In 2009, the only major company to offer that was Google, and they’ve stayed ahead of that curve ever since.

It took our small IT team just three months to roll Google Apps for Work out across four countries. First, we ran a pilot programme in Sweden with 20 users, assisted by Avalon Solutions, the IT consultancy that enabled our switch to Google Apps. Then we deployed 400 accounts over two months by holding training sessions with small groups. People who already used web-based private email required minimal training, and because it’s a web-based system, we simply sent out log-in information instead of installing a client on every computer. Now we’re running 1,000 Google accounts and have decommissioned our expensive email server. That means we’re saving on hardware maintenance and cut out the hassle of handling spam or chasing people to free up space by deleting their emails. Factor in cheaper licenses and zero software installation costs over the past six years, and we’re saving a huge amount of money.

Google Apps for Work is uniquely suitable for doing business on a global scale. It’s not just about relying on web-based mobility to access all of our files and emails anywhere, anytime. Because Google Apps works through a browser, we no longer have compatibility problems with our 40 independent franchise partners, each of which has its own IT setup. Assigning single-sign-on accounts to those partners gives them controlled access to our intranet and Drive. Using Drive lets us centralise administration from our Stockholm office and provides a shared hub to consolidate accounting and retail information across all of our subsidiaries. We use Docs and Sheets globally to manage orders and deliveries with our 50 suppliers in China, Portugal and Spain, while local colleagues can work alongside each other on a single document to craft swift and thorough reports. And Google’s size and reputation gives us peace of mind about its security and stability that we would not get from smaller cloud systems.

By using Google Apps for Work, we enjoy constant and automatic system improvements. New functions regularly appear on Drive, so we’re always ahead of the game as the marketplace evolves. For example, in 2009, Hangouts and tablets didn’t exist. Now outside every meeting room we have an Android tablet linked to Calendar so we can see who’s booked them, while inside the rooms we have Chromebox for meetings to enable Hangout video conferencing. With another IT solution, after six years we’d already be looking for a replacement. With Google Apps for Work, we’re still ahead of the game.

Posted by Ignacio Eceiza, Head of Global IT Projects at Euralis

Editor's note: Today we hear from Ignacio Eceiza, head of Global IT projects at Euralis, a food and agriculture company with an annual revenue of $1.7B. Read how this innovative company is using Google Apps for Work with AODocs to help manage their documents, create workflows and go paperless, creating a faster, more agile business. You can also register here to join our Hangout on Air, on March 15 at 9 a.m. to learn more about how AODocs, a Google Apps for Work partner, can improve your business. 

Euralis started out as a cooperative venture when a group of local wheat farmers in southwest France came together to sell their crops. Nearly 80 years later, we’ve grown to over 5,000 employees around the world who bring high-quality food to market, from seed selection and poultry rearing to the harvesting and selling of the agricultural products. In addition to our employees, we bring together over 12,000 farmers to accomplish our mission. Collaboration remains a core part of who we are.

We have 130 farming and production sites for wheat, cereal, poultry, wine and vegetables; 14 processing plants to prepare these items for distribution; and we market in more than 120 countries across 5 continents — our annual revenue is $1.7B. To accomplish all this, our team needs the tools to work together across diverse environments, in different languages and timezones, within an industry that’s subject to strict quality regulations.

Going Google Three years ago, when we wanted to improve our document management infrastructure, we moved to Google for Work with AODocs. We had compared Apps with AODocs against IBM Lotus Quickplace and Microsoft Sharepoint, and going Google was the obvious choice. The user interface of Google Drive with AODocs was easy to adopt and we could tailor workflows and views in AODocs without requiring much help from the IT department. We were also convinced by the ease of migration, the improvement we’d see in the quality compliance processes and the opportunity to reduce our environmental impact.

AODocs and Drive make it an easy move to Google In addition to giving us all the features we had on our legacy system, AODocs also provided ready-to-use tools that let us migrate our existing content easily into Google Drive. The migration project started in 2014, with multiple document libraries used for human resources, quality policies and ISO 9001 compliance. We trusted AODocs with these critical documents because they were the first enterprise content management solution fully integrated with Google Drive, and their product could be easily configured for a variety of needs, without customized development. We also had peace of mind because of the excellent support of the AODocs team whenever we had questions or needed help.

AODocs and Drive, a perfect fit for quality and regulatory compliance Of course, quality is paramount in the food business, and from farm to warehouse to table, each and every one of us on the team had a part to play in maintaining this quality for our customers. AODocs on Google Drive made it easier to put more attention and focus on quality. Our intranet portal, which uses Google Sites with embedded customized views from AODocs, ensures that we have quick access to all the latest quality-related documents and processes we rely on.

Going paperless with AODocs on Drive With the powerful workflow engine we gained by choosing AODocs on Google Drive, and AODocs’ ability to integrate with SAP, we’ve transformed a formerly complex network of invoicing and purchase processing with multiple custom-built applications on our legacy IBM infrastructure into a simplified, paperless system.

Our accountants can now send invoices to AODocs by email directly from the scanner. AODocs then manages the entire validation workflow and sends notification emails to the corresponding managers. Our managers are often traveling, and they love that they can validate the documents on their smartphone, by simply reviewing notification emails and clicking the validation links.

Furthermore, our managers can configure and update their AODocs applications the way they want, without involving IT as much. Teams are more agile, and now the company has more resources to focus on important goals, like feeding the world.

Posted by Craig Bell, IT Service Delivery Director at The Cordant Group

Editor's note: Today we hear from Craig Bell, IT Service Delivery Director at The Cordant Group, a specialist recruitment and integrated services company employing up to 50,000 staff during peak times, and turning over £750 million a year. Here, Craig tells us how Google Apps for Work has not only helped them work smarter and more flexibly thanks to a business-wide rollout, but has also helped deliver a projected savings of £500,000 to the company’s bottom line in just a year. *Post updated on March 7, 2016.

It may have grown since it was founded in 1957, but ours is still a family business, and one that values the input of every individual, whether they’re one of our 2,500 permanent employees, or one of our tens of thousands of seasonal workers. But with so many staff, we realised we needed an IT solution that would answer the needs of each person, rather than asking each of them to answer to our inflexible IT system. Our solution is Google Apps for Work, which has transformed the way we operate our business at every level.

With 200 locations nationwide, as well as offices in Germany and Australia, we launched our rollout of Google Apps for Work so our staff can work as a team, wherever they are. In early 2015, Cloud Technology Solutions (CTS) helped us deploy Drive for Work and Chrome. Over the course of one year, CTS delivered several thousand Chrome devices, from Chromebooks and Chromebases to Chromebox for meetings.

Now Gmail gives access to our accounts whether in the office, at home or on the road — and the fact that it’s multi-device compatible means no more lugging laptops around just to check our inboxes. The flexibility and immediacy it provides ensures that important messages don’t fall through the cracks, and now we’re so speedy and effective with email communications that we send and receive up to 16 million emails each month.

Hangouts also allows us to communicate (face-to-face in this case) at any time, no matter where any of us are based. With over a thousand Hangouts happening across the Group every month, Hangouts have become so crucial to the way we run our business and communicate with each other that we now often use it to conduct interviews for IT recruits. It’s a great way to asses how intuitively candidates use technology tools, in particular Google Apps. Using Hangouts for interviews also benefits our bottom line: we now spend an average of 25% less time on interviews for IT team members, simply because we don’t have to spend time on things like collecting interviewees from reception and making them cups of tea.

As a recruitment company, we have a frequent turnover of staff. Having forward-looking and familiar tools helps us appeal to the very best new recruits. Web-based mail, instant messaging and online communities like Google+, are cloud-based tools that younger generations have grown up with — and are now ready to work with. This familiarity allows new starters to work efficiently from the moment they log on and saves us time and money on training. Plus Google Apps tools are also incredibly easy to scale up or down.

Knowledge is also easy for us to scale now. We share documents hosted on Google Drive almost half a million times every month and add 125,000 new files each month. And everything we do is reusable rather than disposable. Our own internal teams can manage and roll out successful solutions to every one of our 200 locations without needing armies of external IT service providers to support us, a change that along with keeping specialist knowledge in-house and doing things more efficiently has played a significant part in reducing our operational expenditure by hundreds of thousands of pounds each year.

With the virtual nature of Google for Work products, we can also keep costs and downtime at a minimum when relocating to new offices as we grow. Google’s ability to integrate data and systems to the cloud so seamlessly means shifting office spaces and acquiring new companies is now more economically viable. When considering the total cost of acquisition for a subsidiary business, we look at how easily a business can be “Googlised.” Using Chrome OS allows us to almost instantly integrate existing businesses with often outdated legacy apps into our Group. This has opened up a host of opportunities that we otherwise would not have taken because of prohibitive IT costs.

In just one year, Google Apps for Work has completely changed the way we operate, which says a lot coming from a large and established business. As part of our company-wide “New World” IT rollout, we estimate that the new tools will enable us to save about £500,000, thanks to a combination of lower licensing costs, reducing capital expenditure by purchasing 2,000 compatible devices at more than half the previous cost of replacement, minimising use of external suppliers and relying more heavily on in-house skills and efficiencies. And there’s no doubt that we’ve also saved and earned a whole lot more thanks to working smarter with IT-led solutions.