Tag Archives: Google Apps for Work

Belgian groceries supplier louis delhaize keeps things fresh with Google Apps for Work



Editor's note: Today we hear from Jean-Marc van Cutsem, CEO at louis delhaize Delfood, a groceries supplier in Belgium with an annual turnover of €160 million. louis delhaize neighbourhood stores have been a fixture of Belgian life for generations, and all of the food they sell – from fresh fruit to baked goods – comes from the Delfood warehouses. Read how this 140-year-old family firm is using Google Apps for Work to create a faster, more efficient business.


It’s exactly 140 years since Louis Delhaize, the fourth son of a Belgian winemaker, followed his three brothers into the groceries sector. The pioneering companies they set up would go on to dominate Belgian chain-store retail, so that generations have grown up knowing they’ll receive friendly, fast service on everyday items at their local louis delhaize store.

For the Delfood team that supplies the food, honoring that trust means staying one step ahead of rising expectations. So when our 2007 email solution was due for an upgrade, we took the opportunity to build a more efficient business.

With help from Fourcast, we began introducing Google Apps for Work in January 2015. After our early adopters and IT department had migrated, Fourcast and HR gathered crucial feedback using Google Forms to ensure that staff were content with the process. By April, the whole company was online, and the new tools were already making a difference.


From warehouse to shop display, we’re delivering food faster with Google Apps for Work. If items from our 9,000 dry and 3,000 fresh food lines arrive damaged at our two warehouses, staff use Hangouts on a Chromebook to provide visual proof to headquarters and inform our suppliers. When food heads out to the stores, we calculate optimal routes for 40 trucks with Google Maps. Once it arrives at stores from our warehouses, our inventory managers and their teams photograph anything in less than perfect condition and upload the image to Google+ for immediate action at headquarters.

In store, floor managers display food according to promotions and advice posted by our experts on Google+. This close communication between our store teams on-site and our experts located across the country helps us arrange our products in the most sensible way for our customers – ensuring, for example, that when strawberries are in season, they’re the first thing customers see.


Google Apps is helping us improve the working lives of staff throughout the company:

  • The marketing department moves along the promotion decision process much quicker through the real-time collaboration functionalities of Sheets.
  • Rather than keep time sheets on paper, store staff enter hours directly into Sheets, so that compiling hours can be done in two minutes, instead of a the full day every week it used to take.
  • All staff, wherever they are, can use Gmail. With its powerful search function, 30GB storage space per user, and seamless integration with Calendar, it’s everything we could ask for.
  • Departments use Forms to request leave and sales teams use it to report issues in stores.
  • Chromebooks at our warehouses and owned stores ensure that information travels fluidly around the company instead of only one-way from headquarters.
  • We use our Google logins to access other Google for Work products, such as Chrome for Work to manage digital signage in stores, and Google Cloud Platform to build internal applications.
  • Docs and Sheets with their collaborative features help staff at our separate sites feel like part of a larger team.
  • Our teams receive continued support and advice so that they can find new ways to implement Google Apps with tutorials in-person and on Hangouts from Fourcast.

With Google Apps for Work, we know we always have the latest and best tools at our disposal. Automatic updates to the software mean we can count on Google to cover new needs in an ever-evolving business environment. Being open to innovation has helped us remain a market leader for more than a century, and we plan to honor that legacy well into the future.

Bringing Unlimited Storage to all government customers, looking back and looking ahead



I don’t know about you, but it seems like 2016 has started with a bang!

I have an exciting announcement for my first post of the year — now all U.S. government agencies can choose Google Apps for Work and store unlimited content with the assurance that its security is assessed against the FedRAMP standards. Over the holidays, we received a FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) Authorization to Operate for Google Apps for Work* and Google App Engine. And because this authorization — along with its ongoing compliance requirements — covers our common infrastructure, it benefits all existing Google Apps for Work and App Engine customers as well.

With 2016 off to a busy start, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on 2015. It was a big year for Google for Work.

We launched new features, powered by machine learning, that do more of the heavy lifting so you can work better and faster. For Sheets, we introduced Explore, which provides instant data analytics and visualization with the click of a button. We added Smart Reply to Inbox, which helps you respond to messages by generating short contextual responses to your emails, based on your typical responses. And we open-sourced TensorFlow, our fast and scalable machine learning system, to accelerate advances within the wider community.

Along with the roll out of Marshmallow to the Android for Work program, we held a virtual conference called Android for Work Live so users all over the world could watch and participate. On Maps, we launched Predict Travel Time — one of the most powerful features from our consumer Google Maps experience  so businesses and developers can make their location-based applications even more relevant for their users.

We’re continuing to build out and improve Google Cloud Platform at breakneck speed, with nearly 300 combined products and features launched in 2015. Nearline gives you the benefits of cold storage and the pricing of offline backups, but with high availability for your data. Bigtable gives you access to the same database service that powers many of Google’s core products, like Search and Maps. And Custom Machine Types give you the flexibility to create the virtual machine shape that works for you, so you get just the right amount of memory and processing power for your workloads.

We also reached a new milestone — there are now more than 2 million paying businesses using Google Apps for Work, including new customers like Morrisons, Catholic Health Initiatives and Thames Water. Organizations like Broad Institute, HTC, Atomic Fiction and Nomanini that want powerful data analytics and developer platforms, began using and partnering with Google Cloud Platform for everything from tackling genomic data to building innovative mobile payment apps.

Looking ahead, our goal remains the same: empower billions of people to work the way they choose and build what’s next. We’re building simple and secure tools that make it easier for you to focus on the things that matter. Technology can help by assisting with tasks, suggesting how to maximize your time and even proactively surfacing the information you need. It’s going to be an exciting year. Have a look at our full year wrap up and best wishes for a happy and productive 2016!

*Google Apps for Work, Google Apps for Work Unlimited, Google Apps for Education and Google Apps for Nonprofits. Google's dedicated Government edition is also FedRAMP-authorized.


Collaborating on mobile has never been easier



If you’re like most of our Google Apps customers, there’s a good chance you’re working from different locations throughout the day. Whether you’re on a tablet at the breakfast table, a phone on the train or a laptop at the office, it’s important to have a suite of apps that allow you to be productive from wherever you are. So starting today, you can use the same rich commenting experience across Google Docs, Sheets and Slides on your Android and iOS devices. You can now also quickly add a teammate to the conversation just by starting to type their name in a comment.

For the times when you’re at your desk, you’ll notice the new commenting experience makes it easy to instantly insert a comment using the comment bubble that appears on the right side of a doc.

At Google, we know that mobility is critical for today’s professionals. That’s why we continue to invest in features that make being productive on the go simple, such as the Research feature in the Docs Android app, or making the Google Docs app on mobile fullscreen so you can see all the info you need and hide the controls you might not want immediately (although they’re only ever a click away).

Docs, Sheets and Slides are just part of the mobile experience for Google Apps. Join a video meeting from your phone with Hangouts, check your agenda in Calendar, or see your most important emails in Gmail — your apps are in easy reach and help you collaborate from anywhere. Google Apps for Work also includes advanced security and control with complete Device (MDM) and App (MAM) Mobile Management.

Learn more about Google Docs, Sheets and Slides.

Taking a cloud-based leap: How Oscar W. Larson Co. transformed its business with Google Apps



Editor's note: Today’s guest author is Pete Wayne, chief information officer at Oscar W. Larson Co., a leader in full-service petroleum and fluid handling equipment contracting. Founded in 1946, the company now has more than 300 employees, counts Fortune 100 companies, including GM, Ford, BP and ExxonMobil, as customers, and recently expanded into the automotive, service and airline industries.


While sticking with an old solution might seem safe, it doesn't always guarantee success. This is particularly true in our hometown in the Detroit area, where many of our neighbors worried about losing their jobs after the 2008 recession. We’ve grown our business through tough times by shaking up the status quo. For instance, when we doubled our employee count and ran out of server storage space two years ago, we decided to switch IT solutions — even though many of our employees had used Microsoft for decades and had no experience working in the cloud. After months of research, we opted to migrate to Google Apps for Work, with the expert support of Cloud Sherpas. Here’s what we’ve learned since transitioning from our old way of working to something entirely new:

Google Apps saves us money and time


When we hired 150 new employees in 2013, just getting them company email accounts would’ve required a $26,000 Microsoft system upgrade and a $27,000 storage upgrade. By switching to Google Apps, we saved $65,000 on licensing, storage and server costs. We save time as well by avoiding patch updates and server maintenance.

Google Apps also helps us onboard new employees faster. Because we only have to set up one account for each employee, we don’t need to provision each tablet, phone and computer. We hired 50 people in the last six months, and got each one up and running within minutes.

Google Docs and Drive help us improve efficiency and manage compliance


Technicians need to access manuals and material safety data sheets whenever they’re on the job. We work with Fortune 100 companies that prioritize safety, so compliance is critical. Now, we use Google Drive to ensure our employees have updated information at all times.

Our field technicians used to print their manuals, lug around binders to job sites and flip through hundreds of pages to find the right information. With Drive, we can upload product manuals and safety documents to a shared folder, and technicians can search for the content they need on their phone or laptop.

Google Hangouts let field technicians problem-solve on the spot


We used to send two technicians to every field inspection, so we’d have at least one veteran on site to troubleshoot complicated scenarios. Now that we communicate with Google Apps and can rely on Google Hangouts for instant face-to-face time with veteran technicians who aren’t on site, we only need to send one technician to a job. If our technician needs to call in an expert, he or she can use the Hangouts mobile app. The specialist can see the situation in detail, down to the blown fuse or misplaced wire, and help the technician fix the problem right away. Because we can send just one technician to a job, we have more folks in the field to respond to customer requests.

Google Apps gives us a competitive advantage


We can now communicate more efficiently and access information on demand, which allows us to focus on the service we provide. In addition to consulting with their colleagues via Hangouts to make more informed decisions when proceeding with repairs, our technicians can also provide customers with photos and quotes directly from job sites. With better service, more immediate troubleshooting and instant quotes and photos, we’ve strengthened customer experience.

Sometimes the biggest risk for a business is not taking one at all. Companies need to be smart to survive, and that can mean changing the way they do things. We placed our bet on Google Apps, and it paid off. Google Apps has helped us save time and money and has also helped us build a more efficient, connected and customer-focused business, the business model we needed to stay competitive today and tomorrow.

Romania’s Raiffeisen Bank transforms itself with Google Apps and Android for Work



Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Carl Rossey, COO of Raiffeisen Bank, one of the top five banks in Romania and a unit of Raiffeisen Bank International. See how Raiffeisen Bank uses Google Apps for Work and Android for Work to work better together across its 527 branches and offer innovative banking services to two million customers.


The way people manage their bank accounts today stands in stark contrast to a decade ago, or even just a few years ago. Where they once walked into branches to deposit or withdraw money and check on their balances, they now use laptops and mobile devices, and they do it from anywhere and at any time of day. As a business, we know we need to change with them, to be as mobile as they are, so we’re on a constant quest to transform both how we work with our customers and how we work ourselves. Moving to Google Apps for Work and using Android for Work are two steps we’ve taken to further that digital transformation. We’re proud to be one of the financial services industry’s earliest adopters of Google to create true mobility for both customers and our team.

Before moving to Google, we were relying on tools that held us back rather than pushed us forward. We were using Lotus Notes, which lacked the necessary collaboration tools and required people to be at their desks to do their work. We had to shuffle presentations and reports back and forth between employees, so new products took months to get to markets.

Our deployment to nearly 5,400 employees took just 90 days, and with the help of our implementation partner Netmail, we’re already on our way towards becoming a completely new bank. During the rollout, for example, we created a Google+ community called “Simply Coll@borate,” and invited employees to share advice and tips on using Google. It quickly became the fastest and most useful channel for seeking guidance on our new tools. And our Project Management Office, the first department to shift all its work to Google, now creates and shares Google Docs and Google Sheets in Google Drive, and builds monthly project reports using Google Slides.

Our Human Resources department used to gather feedback on training and hiring by using paper forms or sending out emails that generated few responses. Now they use Google Forms to make data collection easier and more seamless – like gathering suggestions for improving the quality of HR services. They’re also replacing phone interviews with interviews via Google Hangouts, as meeting candidates over video helps hiring managers get more accurate first impressions. The retail bank sales team also uses Hangouts for sales meetings, saving travel time and costs.

We’ve also completed rolling out smartphones equipped with Android for Work to every employee, and we believe we’ll see our vision for the mobile Raiffeisen Bank team come to life. No longer tied to our desks, we’re free to work in new ways for our customers. We save them time and offer them a higher level of customer service by meeting where they work — or from anywhere using Hangouts on mobile devices. We put the rigid ways of traditional banking behind us and have our sights set on a more flexible, innovative future.

Retail in 2016: Looking ahead with our customers and partners at Retail’s Big Show



Coming out of the holiday rush, retailers are already thinking about the year ahead and how to compete in 2016 and beyond. We’re headed to the industry’s largest global event, Retail’s Big Show (January 17-20 in New York City), hosted by the National Retail Federation (NRF), to talk about just that. With more than 30,000 attendees, Retail’s Big Show is the hub of conversations about retail innovation. Many of our own customers will be there, and we look forward to hearing how they’re evolving for the digital age.

Thousands of the world’s top retailers rely on Google Apps, Chrome, Google Maps, Google Cloud Platform and Google Search to work better, wherever they are — from designing the latest trends to selling must-have gadgets (see top tips from our retail customers).

With customized retail tools and APIs, Google helps retailers to master fast fashion, create leaner supply chains and gain a better understanding of customer data. Retailers can grow revenue, reduce costs and innovate quickly.

On the first day of Retail’s Big Show, our partner PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) will host a panel of retailers innovating with Google Apps: Chico’s, Kohl’s, OVS SpA and Waitrose. These customers will discuss how retail CIOs are leading organizational transformation and how their teams transitioned to Google Apps — which reduced costs, strengthened customer experience, shortened product launch cycles and improved how their teams work together on a global scale.

We’re continuing to build an ecosystem of solutions that support the next generation of digital business in retail — including partnerships with technologies for retail workforce management, digital signage, and merchandising, planning, operations and supply chain. Googlers will be hanging out in partner booths at Retail’s Big Show to talk more about these integrations. Look for us in the booths for Kronos Software, Scala and JDA Software to learn about our joint solutions and offerings, and stay tuned for future blog posts from each of these partners and their Google for Work integration stories.

If you’re planning to attend Retail’s Big Show, we hope to see you at the Connected Retailing panel on January 17 at 3:15 p.m. in Hall E, 1E 07.

HubSpot embraces top tech tools like Google Apps to meet employee demand



Editor's note: Today’s guest blog comes from Jim O’Neill, Chief People Officer at HubSpot, the world’s leading inbound marketing and sales platform.


As a fast-growing SaaS company providing the world’s leading inbound marketing and sales platform, top technology solutions aren’t just a bonus at HubSpot; they’re an expectation. We aim to hire savvy employees who expect the benefits of modern, efficient tools for better collaboration and mobility. Our dynamic workforce appreciates the latest technologies, and as a business we need to stay up to speed. The relationship between people and technology is especially important to me as HubSpot’s chief people officer and former chief information officer; I’m particularly focused on how our people are adopting new technology.

We switched from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps in 2010 when the cloud was still more of an idea than a reality for most businesses. We loved that Apps allowed us to work from anywhere and that many of our employees already loved using tools like Gmail and Google Docs. Plus, our costs are now more than three times less per user, per year, using Google Apps.

Apps eliminated worries about system maintenance and upgrades, while offering us the storage space we needed. For example, our co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah stores more than 20GB of data in his inbox alone.

Five years after going Google, employee adoption continues to drive our technology decisions. We observe the products that are gaining traction among our team and standardize on the ones that reach critical mass. We also collect feedback about our team’s technology preferences and usage.

In addition to Apps, we’ve also seen the growing popularity of other tools, like messaging platform Slack. A huge benefit of these types of products (similarly to Apps) is that they require little or no IT maintenance. We can measure this by the number of IT tickets we receive, which dropped from dozens regarding things like syncing issues and PST file corruption to nearly none as a result of using easy-to-manage, cloud-based tools like Apps.

In addition, we’ve integrated Chromeboxes and Hangouts into daily life at HubSpot. Nearly half of our conference rooms are equipped with Chromeboxes, and nine times out of 10 our employees request this set-up over proprietary third-party hardware that is historically quite expensive when compared to Chromebox. As an employee preference and more than 4x cost saver, Chromebox is an ideal solution for on-the-spot or routine team meetings. People love the flexibility to stay connected with their teams, whether through ad hoc chats or planned meetings. We even have a team member named Jordan who is based in Alabama and connects through video Hangout almost all day, every day. We also use Hangouts on mobile to chat on the go. When you’re constantly in transit, like I am, the mobile experience is key.

HubSpot is focused on creating a leading technology platform, and the products we use should reflect this goal. The future of work involves tools that are available on the public Internet — legacy systems with VPNs and private networks require more IT maintenance and cause friction, which just doesn’t cut it for us. We’re constantly prioritizing how we can offer our employees the latest and greatest tech, and Google plays a major role in helping us achieve this.

Norwegian ad agency invents a new creative process with Google Apps for Work



Editor's note: Today we hear from Christoffer Lorang Dahl, Digital Director at SMFB, an advertising agency based in Oslo, Norway. In the 14 years since it was founded, SMFB has delivered award-winning campaigns for local and international clients including Geox, Ikea and Statoil. Read how SMFB created a whole new work environment around Google Apps for Work and made its clients, collaborators and 65 staff happier in the process.




It’s hard to be a 21st century creative agency when we’re bogged down with a 20th century-like IT platform. As SMFB’s Digital Director, I work with creatives and account managers to make digital ideas happen. With at least five projects on the go on any given day, my hands are full, but I always make time to help out with IT, too. One year ago, this informal role took up at least three hours of my work week, while the rest of the team collectively lost 10 working hours a day to spam and a calendar system so clunky it was almost unusable. It was time for a change, so we trialled two possible solutions and chose Google. Not only did we see huge potential in Drive, we guessed that staff would be familiar with Gmail and adapt quickly. We were right.

Google Apps solved the core problems we wanted to address. Gmail fixed our issues with spam, and Google Calendar is exactly the synchronised, reliable and easy-to-use calendar we were looking for. Because of its straightforward interface, everyone can use it to book meeting rooms and tell designers which teams to work with on which days. We used to run everything through a server in Sweden, and when it crashed, none of us could work. We’ve never experienced any downtime since switching to Google.

As well as fix the problems we knew we had, Google Apps for Work has rejuvenated our creative process. It’s hard to put someone in an office and tell them to “be creative.” That’s not how creativity works, but it’s exactly what we used to do. A typical day at SMFB used to begin with a briefing from the account director to the creatives. After that, the creatives would head to their offices to come up with ideas, which they would share by late afternoon so that they could get feedback by the next day. Now creatives start every morning with a Hangout, spend the day in a cafe, under the sun or wherever they like, and share their ideas on Docs. The account director and account manager  even the clients  can pitch in on the process, concepts and copy, which constantly evolve. And we never experience the confusion that results from multiple drafts and versions floating around. Film scripts do change, but if the wrong draft is sent to an animator or a director, the consequences can be dire.

Once we have a project concept, we compile a budget together in Sheets and contact external production companies. We handle at least five of these at a time, and they change from one day to the next, but because Drive documents can be shared with anyone, we can send these external companies briefs, handle agreements and manage the whole process on one platform. Anyone can immediately see how a project is progressing by looking it up on Drive  something that’s vital for running campaigns on social media, where every second counts.

I like to help my colleagues, and Google’s simple administration interface makes it easy. When a workmate accidentally deleted crucial files, I retrieved them from Drive, which lets you recover documents from up to 10 users for up to 25 days. And rather than just react, I suggest better ways of doing things  like creating a group email account for a new project, which I can have ready in two minutes. It’s a whole new way of working. So much so, in fact, that I recommended Google Apps for Work to our partner agency, Forsman & Bodenfors. Now they’re on it, too.

Because it’s gotta be super easy to find your files



(Cross-posted on the Google Drive Blog.)

When you store important files in Google Drive they’re not only safe, they’re accessible from any device. And finding them again from any device should be super easy so we’re rolling out a new search experience to get you better results — even faster.

Drive lets you search across all your files, regardless of the device they came from. To make that easier, you can use these new ways to find your files:
  • Narrow your search to a file type from the search box on Android, iOS, and the web.
  • Open advanced search instantly from the search box.
  • Access recent files or search Drive from the home screen using 3D Touch on iOS.
  • Search Drive using the iOS search bar without opening the Drive app.
Several behind-the-scenes improvements give your search queries even better results than they did before. And to get more specific results, anyone can now do the following:
  • Search for shared files by file owner using their name or email address.
  • Use advanced search options like the date a file was modified, words it contains, or who it was shared with.
This is all part of an ongoing effort to make Drive the easiest place to find your files. Look for these features as they roll out in the coming weeks.

Google for Work security: Announcing Data Loss Prevention to wrap up 2015



Every company has data that it must keep secure — whether that data is about confidential innovations, strategic plans or sensitive HR issues — keeping all of your data safe from inadvertent or purposeful leaks needs to be simple, quick and reliable. Google for Work already helps admins manage information security with tools such as encryption, sharing controls, mobile device management and two-factor authentication. However, sometimes user actions compromise the best of all of these controls; for example, a user might hit “Reply all” when meaning to send a private message with sensitive content.

Starting today, if you’re a Google Apps Unlimited customer, Data Loss Prevention (DLP) for Gmail will add another layer of protection to prevent sensitive information from being revealed to those who shouldn’t have it.

How Gmail DLP works

Organizations may have a policy that the Sales department shouldn’t share customer credit card information with vendors. And to keep information safe, admins can easily set up a DLP policy by selecting “Credit Card Numbers” from a library of predefined content detectors. Gmail DLP will automatically check all outgoing emails from the Sales department and take action based on what the admin has specified: either quarantine the email for review, tell users to modify the information or block the email from being sent and notify the sender. These checks don’t just apply to email text, but also to content inside common attachment types ― such as documents, presentations and spreadsheets. And admins can also create custom rules with keywords and regular expressions.


Check out the DLP whitepaper for more information including the full list of predefined content creators, and learn how to get started. Gmail DLP is the first step in a long-term investment to bring rule-based security across Google Apps. We’re working on bringing DLP to Google Drive early next year, along with other rule based security systems.

As we round out the year, let’s take a look at some of the other work we brought to our services in 2015 to enhance the security, privacy and the control you have on your information.

  • To verify the good work we do on privacy, we were one of the first cloud providers to invite an independent auditor to show that our privacy practices for Google Apps for Work and Google Apps for Education comply with the latest ISO/IEC 27018:2014 privacy standards. These confirm for example, that we don’t use customer data for advertising.
  • To make security easier for all, we've expanded our security toolset:
    • We introduced Security Keys to make two-step verification more convenient and provide better protection against phishing. For admins, we released Google Apps identity services, which allows secure single sign on access with SAML and OIDC support and we delivered device (MDM) and app (MAM) Mobile Management across Google Apps.
    • We launched Postmaster tools to help Gmail users better handle large volumes of mail and report spam.
    • For Google Cloud developers, the Cloud Security Scanner allows you to easily scan your application for common vulnerabilities (such as cross-site scripting (XSS) and mixed content).
    • For those who want the power and flexibility of public cloud computing and want to bring their own encryption keys, we announced Customer-Supplied Encryption Keys for Google Cloud Platform.
    • To give more transparency on how email security, even beyond Gmail, is changing over the years we published the Safer Email report.
  • We introduced new sharing features, alerts and audit events to Google Drive for Google Apps Unlimited customers. For example, administrators can now create custom alerts and disable the downloading, printing or copying of files with Information Rights Management (IRM). New sharing settings give employees better control within their organization unit and now admins can let them reset their own passwords.
  • Google Groups audit settings allow better tracking of Groups memberships. For all, the launch of google.com/privacy gives better control over personal data and Android for Work makes it easier to keep personal and work data separate on employee devices.

Companies are moving to the Cloud for all kinds of reasons, but Security and Trust remain critical and predominant differentiators between providers. That’s why millions of businesses trust Google to do the daily heavy lifting in security ─ preventing, testing, monitoring, upgrading and patching, while working towards the future. Because Google was born in the cloud, we’ve built security from the ground up across our entire technology stack, from the data centers to the servers to the services and features we provide across all of your devices. No other Cloud provider can claim this degree of security investment at every single layer.

While 2015 was a great year, there’s a lot more in store for 2016. To learn more about how our technology is evolving, please join us at the Enigma conference in San Francisco on January 25th to discuss electronic crime, security and privacy ideas that matter.