The COVID-19 pandemic has permanently changed the way in which business is done. Remote and hybrid work options are set to continue even after widespread vaccination. Mercer reports that over 83% of organizations plan to offer their employees flexible work options on a greater scale post-pandemic.
Organizations need new tools to facilitate this new way of working, which is driving many forward-thinking enterprises to migrate to Google Workspace. Workspace apps and data are accessible from any modern web browser or mobile app, running any operating system, making it an ideal solution for distributed workforces who need to be able to connect using different devices and from different locations. Whether your employees are working on-prem, remotely, or a mixture of both, they can easily and securely access all of the apps, files, and data they need to perform their jobs.
Here are 4 more ways in which Google Workspace helps today’s organizations work in new ways:
1. It enables collaboration across distributed teams
Google Workspace offers superior collaborative features to enhance innovation by both remote and on-prem workforces. While other office productivity apps require users to go through multiple steps to collaborate on a document, spreadsheet, or presentation, Google Workspace users simply open up a file in Docs, Sheets, or Slides and start working. All edits and comments are saved and displayed in real-time, so even if multiple people are working on a file simultaneously, everyone is kept on the same page.
From one-on-one conversations to conference calls, Gmail, Meet, Chat, and Calendar keep distributed workforces connected and communications flowing. Supervisors can use Calendar to keep apprised of their workforces’ schedules and activities. Employees can strike up one-on-one or shared chats in Chat or schedule video conferences with up to 250 participants in Meet, both of which are accessible directly through Gmail. You can also record meetings if you have the Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, or Enterprise Plus license.
In the coming months, Google will be rolling out Google Meet’s picture-in-picture to Gmail and Chat, as well as Docs, Sheets, and Slides, enabling users to see and hear the people they’re collaborating with, while they’re collaborating. This will enable presenters to pick up on valuable nonverbal cues during important client interactions, such as sales proposals or contract negotiations.
2. It enhances efficiency
Google Workspace empowers your employees to work smarter by making it quick and easy for them to find the information they need to do their jobs, with time-saving features such as:
- When users hover over a hyperlinked file in Docs, Sheets, and Slides, Workspace shows them a preview of that file, without the user having to open a new tab, minimizing the need to toggle between tabs and apps.
- Gmail puts every Workspace communication tool under one roof, further minimizing the need to switch between apps. Right from their Gmail window, users can send an instant message with Chat or start a Meet video conference. They can also access their Google Calendar, review their Google Tasks, and review their Google Keep notes, all without ever leaving Gmail.
- When users @mention someone in their document, Workspace displays that person’s contact information and suggests actions, such as adding that person to Contacts or sending them an email. This feature works even if the person mentioned is outside your organization, such as a freelancer, vendor, or other business partner.
- Gmail’s Smart Compose feature uses artificial intelligence to make suggestions based on your writing style as you type, greatly speeding up the process of writing emails, especially on mobile devices.
- The Sheets Smart Fill feature works much like Smart Compose in Gmail, utilizing both data in your sheet and Google’s public Knowledge Graph to detect patterns, generate suggestions, and make data entry easier and faster.
- Have an old PDF that needs to be updated? Don’t waste time trying to copy and paste; just convert it to a Google Doc.
3. It plays nicely with Microsoft Office
We all know that Google Workspace is the world’s best office productivity suite, but a lot of the world, and maybe even some people in your organization, still use Microsoft Office. No problem! Office editing enables Workspace users to easily access, edit, and even collaborate on Office files right in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, without having to convert the Office files. You can even open and edit Office files directly from a Gmail attachment, without having to save the document in Drive.
In addition to working with Office files, Workspace offers easy-to-use plugins to make it easier for mixed Google-Microsoft teams to coordinate their calendars and schedule meetings. The Google Meet add-in for Microsoft Outlook enables Microsoft users to add Meet video conferencing details to their Outlook calendars, while the Google Calendar Interop tool enables team members to view each others’ schedules and book meeting times.
4. It’s super secure
Google Workspace’s security and privacy tools give administrators complete visibility and control across the organization, with tools including:
- A unified app management experience that enables admins to manage web and mobile apps in a single place within the admin console.
- The ability for admins to deploy and manage Google Credential Provider for Windows (GCPW), which makes using Windows 10 devices with Workspace easier and more secure, right from the admin console.
- Click-time link protections for all official Gmail clients (web, Android, and iOS), along with external IMAP clients, including Apple Mail and Outlook. This extends Gmail’s malicious link checking functionality to users who check their email using an external IMAP client.
- Proactive defenses against online meeting hijackers in Google Meet, including 25-character-string meeting IDs to prevent brute-force automated hacking; disallowing external participants from automatically joining Meet conferences without an invitation; and barring meeting participants from rejoining nicknamed meetings once the final participant has left.
- More Meet security defenses are coming soon, such as an AI-driven feature that will automatically classify users who have been marked abusive and ejected from prior meetings and prevent similar users from joining meetings in the future; automatic detection of abusive display names or codes; the ability for users to report abuse within Meet to their IT admins; and audit logs for admins that display instances when users in their domain report abuse.
Let SADA help you discover new ways of working with Google Workspace
We have a certified team of cloud consultants and sales engineers to evaluate and activate Google Workspace for organizations with extensive footprints. Contact us to learn how we can help you mobilize Google Workspace. We’ll put the enterprise-class cloud productivity suite to work for you – better, faster, and more effectively, helping you make technology a catalyst for collaboration and transformation.
