WeWork transitions 5,000+ users from Zoom to Google Meet in 16 days with the help of SADA

The global COVID-19 pandemic has proved that many kinds of knowledge work can be performed from anywhere. A significant portion of the workforce no longer has to commute Monday through Friday to an office downtown. Now, they insist on continuing to be able to carry out duties for their employers remotely. While some will continue to work from home full time or travel to the office every other day, others will opt to go to a shared office space where they can meet their coworkers and clients when necessary.

“The way people are going to the office isn’t the same, where everyone comes to one location,” says Chad Pierce, Head of Technology Architecture and Solutions at WeWork, a leading flexible space provider. “People want to come into an office, but maybe they don’t want to go to the same place every day. WeWork has addressed that need, enabling our members’ employees to work flexibly from any WeWork location while having the benefits of being in the office and out of the house for that dedicated, focused time. Technology plays a role in delivering that flexible experience with the same broadband connectivity, video conferencing, and overall amenities at every office.”

WeWork has been providing office space since 2010, based on a vision to create environments where people and companies come together and do their best work. Since opening their first location in New York, they’ve grown into a global flexible space provider committed to technology-driven turnkey solutions, flexible spaces, and community experiences.

Business challenge

In the mid-2010s, WeWork expanded rapidly and had to make technology decisions quickly to build out their offices. Given the selection of available products at the time, they implemented Zoom video conferencing for team calls, virtual business meetings, and to support dial-in users. 

“Meanwhile, we engaged with SADA to migrate WeWork’s acquisitions to Google Workspace, our corporate standard for office productivity and collaboration with Gmail, Sheets, Docs, and Slides.”

– Chad Pierce | Head of Technology Architecture and Solutions at WeWork

“WeWork was in hyper-growth mode in 2016 into early 2017, and at the time, we made a choice to go with the Zoom video platform,” says Pierce. “Meanwhile, we engaged with SADA to migrate WeWork’s acquisitions to Google Workspace, our corporate standard for office productivity and collaboration with Gmail, Sheets, Docs, and Slides. Workspace is very functional, with software enhancements being added daily or monthly. There has been continuous development of Workspace as it progressively matured into an enterprise-grade solution, which now addressed our needs to include video conferencing, as well.”

Fast-forward three years, WeWork re-evaluated their tools. “We looked at the tools we already had, and as Google Cloud continued to evolve Google Meet, adding features and ability to support more users and use cases, we realized we were paying twice for two comparable video-conferencing platforms,” says Pierce. 

Once WeWork had decided to migrate to Google Meet, the business challenge was how to do it quickly and seamlessly for its 5,000+ users spread across 700+ sites worldwide.

Solution

As Google Workspace users from the time they were a small startup, WeWork has always been familiar with the highly integrated productivity apps. To begin using Google Meet as part of Google Workspace, however, WeWork would need to enable its 5,000+ users and provide them with documentation for the transition. To do this efficiently, WeWork needed change management services. SADA, a three-time Google Cloud Partner of the Year, took on the task to help train WeWork users, document Google Meet, and deliver other change management services.

“Because WeWork was already using Workspace, adding Google Meet links to Calendar invites and other Workspace apps was intuitive,” says Pierce. “The major process change for people was the lack of a desktop-based app, such as in the case of Zoom, versus a browser-based video-conferencing solution, like Google Meet. SADA’s documentation and training were really important to guide our users through the migration.”

Results

As a result of working with SADA to help roll out Google Meet, WeWork was able to transition all of its 5,000+ users to Google Meet in just 16 days. After SADA trained the employees on how to use Google Meet and documented the use cases for adding external guests from the internet and dial-in callers, WeWork deployed it to its 700+ locations worldwide.

“It’s a testament to SADA’s change management process that we had such a smooth transition to Google Meet. The overall intuitiveness of Google Workspace was a great help, too, so it wasn’t very difficult to drill down and understand how to share a meeting and how to start and end calls.”

– Chad Pierce | Head of Technology Architecture and Solutions at WeWork

In the future, WeWork intends to continue working with Google Cloud and SADA developing and implementing new Google Meet features. “We’re looking forward to additional external video conferencing capabilities,” says Pierce. “The Google Cloud team has been actively taking our feedback and actually adding our functionality suggestions to the roadmap; it’s great to partner with them, and we’ll be rolling those features out progressively, with the help of SADA.”

WeWork will continue to empower workers and their employers to be productive away from the office–and away from home–in a safe workspace, with the innovative video technology of Google Meet, supported by SADA.