Technology has ushered in a new era in the workplace. More businesses are turning to tools once reserved for consumers to streamline their operations and catalyze innovation. This radical paradigm shift is known as the consumerization of IT. At the forefront of this revolution is G Suite, Google’s set of cloud computing, productivity, and collaboration tools.
In this post, we will take a look at the challenges that companies are facing in the age of IT consumerization and the benefits that embracing tools like G Suite can bring.
Employees Thrive with Familiar Tools
Regardless of industry, the main engine driving the majority of modern companies forward is collaboration. For many businesses, this key component of success is being stifled by outdated tools and obsolete technologies. Employees end up spending an inordinate amount of time hunting down information, working with proprietary software that inhibits teamwork, and dealing with corporate email server downtime.
So is it any surprise that many knowledge workers want to be able to use the tools and software they’re familiar with? G Suite comprises a variety of products that enable users to connect and create, including Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Meet, and more. Do you know what these tools have in common? The average consumer is already acquainted with the majority of them.
Besides being familiar, software products like G Suite are also pushing aside enterprise applications because they’re often more reliable. In a survey of IT departments, Constellation Research found that internal tool reliability ranged from 97% to 99.1%. In comparison, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud vendors delivered 99.9% uptime.
It’s no secret that employees perform better when they can work with reliable tools they’re familiar with. So why do so many corporations put up so much resistance to IT consumerization?
The Battle Between IT and Business Leaders
IT leaders at organizations have become accustomed to having complete control over corporate tech spending. But according to Harvard Business Review (HBR), this is changing: corporate tech spending has increased by around 17 to 20% in recent years, yet IT department spending has remained flat.
What’s going on? It turns out that business leaders have taken the reins over when it comes to tech purchasing decisions. In a way, this makes sense—business leaders must move fast to gain a strategic advantage, and quickly deploying technologies often gives them the edge they need. But, from an IT perspective, this type of business-driven approach can result in disorder and chaos if new tech tools and solutions are implemented incorrectly, leaving IT departments perpetually in “clean-up” mode.
So what’s a business to do? Well, it turns out G Suite can make both IT and business leaders happy.
The Undeniable Appeal of G Suite
To help IT teams and business leaders navigate the consumerization of IT, HBR interviewed 100 early adopters and discovered there were six ingredients that were crucial to transition success. G Suite meets all of the requirements:
- Simplicity: G Suite is the embodiment of design thinking; self-service is so intuitive that unacquainted users are up and running in only a few minutes.
- Scalability: Unlike many internal tools, scaling up and down with G Suite is a seamless process. It can easily adapt to work for a wide range of environments.
- Safety: Integrating G Suite into your operations does not negatively impact your existing systems or the daily work of your employees.
- Security: Like all of Google’s products, G Suite employs top-of-the-line data security requirements.
- Sustainability: G Suite is an extensible solution that companies can rely on for long periods of time.
- Enjoyability: To get the most value from a product, users must actually enjoy using it. It’s no coincidence that many of the tools that comprise G Suite are consumers’ top choices in their respective applications.
Redefining Collaboration for Colgate-Palmolive with G Suite
To see the power of G Suite in action, let’s go over an actual example. Recently, SADA helped Colgate-Palmolive migrate its employees to G Suite.
With products sold in more than 200 countries, Colgate-Palmolive has become a household name in hygiene. But to keep pace with the fast-moving landscape of consumer packaged goods, the company knew it needed to change the way its cross-functional teams across 130 offices collaborated.
“We set out to find an easy-to-use toolset that would support innovation across our teams and fundamentally change what people could accomplish,” explains Mitch Cohen, Senior Manager of Collaboration Services at Colgate-Palmolive. “We wanted a solution that people would be excited about using—and something that we knew could support our company over the next 20+ years.”
Together with SADA and Google, Colgate-Palmolive set out to develop and implement a wide-scale plan to launch G Suite across its organization. Six months later, the company managed to smoothly and quickly migrate 28,000 of its employees to G Suite.
Not long after, the results of this endeavor became readily apparent. G Suite drove the organization’s efficiency and productivity to new heights; in one month alone, Colgate-Palmolive’s employees logged 57,000 hours of Google Hangouts Meet sessions, and 94% of users were actively collaborating on Google Drive.
By embracing the advantages that G Suite brings, companies like Colgate-Palmolive are seizing the opportunities that the consumerization of IT offers. Change can be difficult for any business organization. But in this case, the benefits are undeniable. More so than ever before, it’s important for companies to stay ahead of the curve. And using products like G Suite ensures you’re more than ready for the future.
