Tag Archives: Google for Work

GANT suits up for global growth with Google Apps for Work

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.

Famous Fish by Steve Costi provides a first-ever digital experience for diners

Posted by Jon Sully, Director, Famous Fish

Editor's note: Today we hear from Jon Sully, Director of Famous Fish by Steve Costi, founded by one of Australia’s most renowned seafood families and the first business in the world to adopt end-to-end Google Commercial Chrome technology. Learn how the digital technologies helped boost brand awareness and transaction values by nearly 29% while blending seamlessly with a historic seaside aesthetic.

The Costi family joined the seafood business in 1958, and since then has built a strong reputation for offering up the highest quality seafood. One of the reasons for the family’s continued success has been a focus on innovating and responding to what customers really want. With our latest venture, Famous Fish, we aimed to balance our legacy of seafood expertise with a modern, customer-friendly environment. So we decided to cast our net into the digital world and transform our stores with interactive menu boards and express ordering technologies, a decision that has boosted transaction values by nearly 29%.



Our Famous Fish shops are high-traffic environments, so we needed technology that was robust, responsive and durable, as well as user-friendly. We turned to Nuon, a strategic partner of digital signage leader AOPEN. Nuon recommended Google Commercial Chrome due to its reliability and security. 

 The Google Commercial Chrome Technology hardware and software platform, developed by both Google and AOPEN, had recently been released. It’s designed for high performance and manageability as well as high-use and quick service retail and restaurant environments like ours. And Nuon believed the solution could be deployed rapidly and cost effectively. It was exactly the solution we were looking for.


Combining self-service touch screens with dynamic menu boards, the Commercial Chrome technology is already providing a huge return on investment. We’re seeing a noticeable increase in brand awareness and a large boost in customer spend.

At our newly opened Fountain Gate franchise, our average transaction value is 28.7% higher when customers have the autonomy and time to consider their purchase, ordering on their own in-store kiosk using the express ordering option. We’re confident that as customers become even more familiar with the self-ordering technology, the response will be even greater.
And the benefits of this new solution go beyond awareness and sales. Since we’re expanding rapidly, being able to centrally manage the Commercial Chrome Devices is key to our growth. Google’s Chrome Device Management has made central management easy and effective.

We also love that Google/AOPEN Commercial Chromebase products blend in a stylish and attractive way with our seaside design aesthetic. We wouldn’t have bet before actually seeing it that this digital technology would sit so comfortably alongside our weathered white timber panelling, beach murals and miscellaneous fishing paraphernalia. The digital technologies that have modernized our restaurant leave the personality and history of our brand completely in tact.

Famous Fish, Fountain Gate, in Melbourne is the first store to use the Google/AOPEN Commercial Chrome platform. Since that deployment has been such a success, we’ll deploy the technology in other stores very soon following the Fountain Gate blueprint.

New templates in Google Docs: designed by experts, made for you

Posted by Brian LeVee, Product Manager

(Cross-posted on the Google Docs Blog.)

We launched a collection of templates in Docs, Sheets and Slides in September to give your documents, spreadsheets, and presentations the extra polish they deserve. Today, we’re adding to that collection with new templates designed by five experts in their fields. All templates are available on the web and on Android and iOS.



For your big ideas, at work and on the go 

Intuit's QuickBooks software helps small business owners get more out of financial planning with tools like automated budgeting, tax time reports, and payroll. Use the new annual business budget template by QuickBooks in Sheets to easily manage your budget so you can focus on building your business.



GV provides venture capital funding to bold new companies. In the fields of life science, healthcare, artificial intelligence, robotics, transportation, cyber security and agriculture, GV’s companies aim to improve lives and change industries.The new GV pitch template in Slides helps entrepreneurs share their vision, based on proven presentation tactics.



And, in the bestselling book, Made to Stick, brothers Chip and Dan Heath revealed that “sticky” messages of all kinds draw their power from the same main traits. In their big idea template in Slides, they use these principles to help you build and deliver your most memorable presentation yet.



For a head start, at school and beyond 

Reading Rainbow, the third longest running children's TV series in US history and award-winning digital service, has been inspiring children to read for over 30 years. Reading Rainbow created a lesson plan and a book report template in Docs to help teachers and students get things done.



The Google Science Fair (GSF) is an annual online science and engineering competition open to teens globally. In the competition, young scientists have tackled issues like world hunger, life-threatening diseases and the energy crisis. Use GSF’s science fair template in Slides for a head start on your next project—or for this year’s GSF.





Jump-start your next project with these easy-to-use templates in Docs, Sheets, and Slides—available on the web and on your Android or iPhone. Let us know what you create!

More innovation brings more security so for today, let’s raise the bar with Gmail DLP

Posted by Gerhard Eschelbeck, VP of Security & Privacy Engineering


I’m quite excited to be speaking at the RSA Conference this week in San Francisco, joined by thousands of security professionals from around the world. If you’re attending RSA, please visit Room 2004 at 2:20 p.m. tomorrow. I’ll talk a bit about my experience in the security industry and share some of the challenges and advantages I’ve experienced protecting users and customers at Google. Like many professionals visiting the conference, I became interested in security many years ago because it was a challenging, exciting and intellectually fascinating area. Back then, very few of us could have predicted how those challenges would grow in scale and complexity. But the technology available to address those challenges has also evolved, and today I see a safer Internet within reach.

When we think about innovation at Google, most of us think about balloons delivering wireless access or driverless cars. But for many years, we've been innovating at scale with security as well. Google has a long history of accelerating innovation and facilitating the adoption of new technology — like two-step verification (2SV), Security Keys, SSL encryption and even removing spam in email. Remember when spam was going to cripple email in the 90’s? Today, spam is down to less than 0.1% for the average Gmail user — one of the earliest and finest examples of applying massive computing power and machine learning to solve a big security challenge. We believe technology can help solve more of the challenges we face.

For example, today we’re adding new features to our Data Loss Prevention solution in Gmail. For users, security should just work. Because sensitive information can reside not just in text documents, but also in scanned copies and images, DLP for Gmail now uses Optical Character Recognition. We've also introduced additional detection parameters for fine-grained policy control and offer broader coverage of HIPAA data and personally identifiable information (PII) globally.

Many of us today see how large cloud providers play an increasing role in keeping our important information secure. At Google, we’re certainly putting our shoulder to the wheel.

To learn more about Google on security, check out my recent roundtable discussion on Medium. See you tomorrow in San Francisco!

Chrome, the browser for business, gains improved security and support

Posted by Saswat Panigrahi, Product Manager, Chrome for Work

These days, the browser has become the go-to application in business. It enables employees to use a wide array of productivity, collaboration and business workflow applications. Chances are today, the browser is among the most critical applications users start up with their morning coffee.


Chrome has become one of the most-used business browsers; research firm Gartner expects Chrome’s enterprise usage to surge from 43% to 65% share in 2016. Customers have switched to Chrome because of its speed, simplicity and security. IT admins have become big champions of Chrome because our browser automatically updates and delivers enterprise applications seamlessly and consistently across all operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux — and of course Chrome OS). This means cost and time savings as IT can manage one secure endpoint to deliver all their users’ apps.


Today, we’re announcing new investments for Chrome, specifically for businesses: security enhancements for Windows 10, improvements to the Chrome update system for enterprises and a new 24x7 support offering for all customers, including those who aren’t using Google Apps but are running Chrome as their primary browser.

Security - Security is one of the founding principles of Chrome. Now, we’ve made the sandbox more secure by incorporating the broadest set of available protections. We’ve also introduced a new Security Panel in DevTools to make it easier for developers to troubleshoot issues with certificates and mixed content — meaning pages rendered with both HTTPS and HTTP elements — making it easier to develop and deploy secure Web applications. Finally, we've also made great progress in the fight against unwanted software, for instance, by warning users of a site’s potential risks.

Caching - Companies rely on our automatic updates every six weeks to make the Chrome browser safer and faster over time. But for an organization with thousands of users and devices, trying to pull the latest Chrome update can strain the organization’s infrastructure. The new DownloadPreference lets proxies already used by businesses cache updates automatically,  so virtually all downloads come from the company proxy and not the Internet, saving time and bandwidth.

24x7 Support - We recognize that for businesses that run on Chrome, it’s important to have the peace of mind that comes with 24x7 support from Google. We’ve been providing this for Google Apps customers, and today we’re expanding this to all customers — even those who aren’t using Google Apps. This new offering is called Chrome for Work Assist, and includes 24x7 phone and email support, with deployment assistance from Google. Chrome for Work Assist is now available in the US and Canada, with more regions launching soon. Contact us to learn more or get started.

Euralis grows with Google, thanks to AODocs’ document management capabilities

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.



Are all clouds created equal?

Posted by Sebastien Marotte, VP, Google Apps for Work

Cloud-based workplace tools are no longer niche. Companies from small startups to Fortune 500 giants like Whirlpool and PWC have realized that servers are expensive, teams need real-time collaboration and employees need access to email, calendar and collaborative editing tools on their phones. For many companies, deciding to move on-premises systems to the cloud is a no-brainer. Figuring out which cloud solution delivers the most return on investment when both major providers claim their tools are “mobile-friendly” and offer “real-time collaboration” is the tough part.

To provide customers with concrete data on the benefits that productivity, mobility and collaboration can bring to an organization (even after moving to the cloud), Google commissioned independent market research firm Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact (TEI) study. Forrester surveyed seven companies in North America, EMEA and APAC in a range of industries — including professional services, retail, real estate, IT and media — who migrated from an alternate cloud solution to Google Apps. For a composite organization based on feedback from the interviews, Forrester found that switching to Google Apps for Work resulted in the following benefits in a three-year period:

  • 213% return on investment (ROI)
  • Payback in just 1.9 months
  • Nearly $1 million in collaboration and productivity gains

In addition to these hard numbers, Forrester uncovered a few common themes that customers experienced after switching from their previous cloud solution to Google Apps for Work:


Google Apps “just works”

People crave simplicity. With Google Apps, teams can create a new document in seconds or add a conference room to a calendar invite with a single click. Customers reported there are no headaches with Google Apps — whether on a desktop, laptop, mobile phone, tablet, Android or iOS, Google Apps works exactly as they expect it to.

Quick adoption results in speedy ROI

It’s no surprise that most companies want their employees to use the tools they pay for. Popsugar reported that Going Google saves the organization $100 thousand each year in annual enterprise volume software licenses — an agreement that their IT director says included software the company neither wanted nor needed.

After switching to Google Apps, customers reported that overall platform adoption increased significantly compared to engagement with the previous solution. Many interviewees attributed this rise in engagement to the intuitive nature of Google Apps and broad employee familiarity with Google products like Gmail.

Collaboration is a breeze

While the interviewees’ previous cloud solution claims users can work together at the same time, their former customers told Forrester they struggled with browser and device compatibility, and had difficulties working with colleagues who had different license types. Google Apps works from any device on any modern browser, and all users can work together, regardless of what type of license they have.

Easier collaboration means that employees are productive, and when employees are more productive, companies save money. When it comes to creating content, Forrester found that productivity increased by 20% due to the ease and mobility of real-time collaboration offered by Google Apps — particularly when it comes to Docs, Sheets and Slides.

Customers’ voices matter

Everyone likes to be heard. Customers said they felt more supported by Google than their previous provider: issues are resolved faster, customers feel like they’re an important part of the product development process, and they reported they were happy to find that feedback can be easily submitted directly from the admin console.

One customer described Google’s 24/7 phone, email and chat support like this: “The previous platform provider resolved only 3 of 10 issues satisfactorily and often took 12 to 14 hours to do so against an 8-hour SLA. Google is closer to 9 of 10 and always within the 8-hour window.”

Type, edit and format with your voice in Google Docs

Posted by Isaiah Greene, Product Manager

We launched Voice typing in Google Docs to help you capture ideas, compose an agenda, or even write the next great proposal — all without touching your keyboard. Starting today, you can also edit and format your documents with your voice.

To get started, select “Voice typing” in the “Tools” menu when you’re using Docs in Chrome. Say what comes to mind — then start editing and formatting with commands like “copy,” “insert table,” and “highlight.”

Check out the full list of commands here or simply say “voice commands help” when you’re voice typing.

As an added bonus, we’re also making it possible to dictate in Docs on the web in dozens of additional dialects and accents, including English with an Indian accent, Spanish with a Mexican accent, and more so you can talk in the most natural way for you.

You shouldn’t have to use additional complex software to accomplish everyday tasks with voice typing. You can already use your voice to take action in Google search and find content in your inbox or Drive folders. Now you can use it to capture, edit and format your ideas in Docs.

Try out Voice typing (and editing and formatting) today with Google Apps for Work.

Deli XL explores fresh markets for fresh food with Google Apps for Work

Posted by Rene van Gelderen, CIO at Deli XL

Editor's note: Today we hear from Rene van Gelderen, CIO at Deli XL, a wholesale food supplier and distributor based in Ede, The Netherlands. Deli XL’s 2,000 employees work round the clock, seven days a week to deliver fresh groceries to the country’s restaurants, hospitals, retirement homes and company canteens. Read how Deli XL is using Google Apps for Work to lead change in their business and connect their nationwide team.


At Deli XL, what you order today, we deliver tomorrow, whether it’s fresh fish, purple mustard or any of the other 70,000 items we have available for ordering. With 700,000 order lines each week from 20,000 customers nationwide, we need to work together efficiently to keep this 24-hour promise.


And when we decided to focus even more on hotels and restaurants and shift to the ecommerce model to adapt to client demands and changing business needs, we needed the tools that could help us do that even better.

Google Apps helped us overhaul our business model with minimal disruption. Our old email system was functional, but too slow to satisfy the demands of ecommerce. Gmail is fast, remotely accessible, and, along with Calendar, makes it simple to work together across our 15 sites. Google+ was also invaluable during this time. We knew rolling out complex new structures in our financial- and warehouse-management systems was going to cause significant stress. So as we deployed new systems, we posted constant updates on Google+ so everyone could keep track and discover the new tools together.

Now we use Google+ to solve problems in all areas of Deli XL, business and IT problems alike. For example, one Saturday morning, an account manager reported an issue with our ecommerce system. Previously, she would have called the weekend service desk and waited until Monday morning for a response. By posting the issue on Google+, I could immediately see that it was serious and brought our offshore developers in India into the discussion. Using Google Translate to interpret our Dutch, they had a solution ready for Monday morning, saving 1,000 customers from experiencing major disruption.

Google+ is far more effective than spending time on the phone: basic IT problems can be solved in seconds by non-IT staff; account managers share advice on how to fill unclear customer orders, and employees air difficult questions that might otherwise never be asked. After one major problem, during which we posted frequent updates on Google+, I carried out a survey. In the past, similar situations would always elicit complaints about communication, but for this survey, 97% of respondents expressed strong satisfaction with how we communicated during the incident.

Each of our 1,000 desk workers has a Google account, and now we’re connecting our 500 drivers and 500 order pickers, too. This opens up tremendous new possibilities for us. On every job, drivers keep track of the crates used to carry goods. Rather than do this by hand and deliver the slips to the Finance department, they’ll be able to keep track of the crates in Forms and eliminate the paper trail. Also, by having drivers check in and out of destinations on Forms, we’ll be able to tell customers where their delivery is and if it will be late, at a fraction of the cost of a GPS solution.


Over ninety percent of our order lines now come from online business, and we’ve made the transition into the hotel, restaurant and cafe market without any loss in revenues. In addition to savings due to faster troubleshooting, stronger cross-team communications and delivery tracking, our CFO calculates that using Drive storage will save up to €100,000 a year, once we retire our old file servers. And behind the numbers, all the extra communication is making us more of a team: with a Hangout group on each company site, no one needs to miss out when we share birthday cake.

Google Apps for Work helps deliver projected savings of £500,000 for The Cordant Group

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.

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. 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.