IT business atmosphere: Google Apps for Work
We live among the gadgets and they make life easier for us: they remind you of business, send letters, allow you to communicate at great distances, buy online, walk through the streets of distant cities without getting up from your favorite couch. This is our fully formed, information-technical atmosphere. But it is worth coming to the office, as we are often greeted by a wiped diary, a monitor pasted over with reminder stickers, a note from a colleague on a whiteboard.
A few years ago, the transition to electronic commerce, document management, CRM and ERP systems, project management systems was a growing trend. In 2015, this is an objective need of most companies from all sectors of the economy. Corporate software is firmly established in the life of Russian business and has affected almost all business processes. How do you breathe in your IT atmosphere?
There are a lot of excuses that justify the refusal to use convenient corporate software: a small company, a young company, normal internal communication, few clients and so on ... In fact, all of them are untenable - using this kind of software is justified even if you are single Entrepreneur working as a director, manager, programmer and accountant in one person.
Approach to the implementation of corporate software can be different: from the installation of simple software organizers to the deployment of complex expensive projects for the implementation of CRM and ERP. However, if you are a small company that develops in the market and is committed to increasing the volume of its customer base and profits, you should start with affordable, reliable solutions that optimize business processes. Such as Google Apps.
Each business generates leads - a large pool of individuals for whom its products or services may be of interest. A lead can have a number of parameters: gender, age, hobbies, favorite colors and so on ... As a rule, these parameters are strictly dependent on the scope of the company and are not subject to unification. But there is one parameter that is of interest to business most of all - the user's contacts: telephone, address, e-mail. If you have once worked with the collection of data from the site or offline, you noticed that the address and telephone number is often provided false, but the e-mail is up to date.
Psychologically, people attribute their phone and residential address to a more private area than e-mail, which, moreover, can receive news from companies, for example, about promotions and discounts (relevant for B2B and B2C). In addition to the leads and contact details of existing customers, the business constantly conducts business correspondence - with partners, suppliers, authorities, fiscal authorities, etc. That is why almost the first request for corporate software: reliable, convenient and functional mail.
Google obviously knows a lot about corporate communications - which is why business users get from Google Apps not only reliable email that has absorbed the best Gmail practices, but also additional benefits. One of them is mail on your own domain. That is, if you have thebestme.ru website, then your email addresses will not look like ivanov89561@gmail.com , but like ivanov@thebestme.ru . Such mail looks more solid, inspires confidence in the sender and associates it with the company, which means that the letter will be more likely to be read. With Google Apps email, you can manage contacts and distribution groups, conduct business correspondence and produce newsletters with informational and marketing messages for your customers.
Google Apps Corporate Mail includes protection against spam - you will not waste time searching for the right emails and deleting numerous spam mailings. Built-in calendars and flexible productive search will not forget about one case and easily find the right correspondence in a few clicks. Corporate customers are guaranteed uninterrupted mail operation for 99.9% of the time and 30 GB is provided for data storage.
Many of the Internet users are familiar with the Google Docs service, which allows you to create text documents, spreadsheets and presentations online and offline, and the Google Drive service, which stores documents, photos and other files in the cloud. Of course, business needs to take full advantage of these solutions.
Another type of document that can be created in Google Apps is profiles and web forms. They are created extremely simply and provide for verification of the correctness of the answer given by the respondent. According to the results of the study, an analyst is formed on the results with which it is possible to work in tables. This solution is useful for almost any business - you can easily survey users, find out customer preferences or collect feedback on the results of activity.
If for some reason you are not satisfied with the basic functionality of Google Apps, we recommend you to pay attention to the advanced version of the application - Google Apps Unlimited , supplied for a small additional fee. In this version, additional tools for auditing, reporting and administration of the Disk, unlimited disk space for data storage, as well as Google Safe for all employees of the organization are available. The enhanced version provides tangible benefits to users and system administrators.
Users get unlimited space to store files on Google Drive, messages in Gmail and photos on Google+ (if the organization has less than 5 employees, each user is provided with a 1 TB storage). Administrators can use Google Safe to work with the correspondence of employees (archiving, storage, export, search), search all the files of the Disk, access to the API and advanced audit features. User groups created by the administrator in the enhanced version of Google Apps Unlimited can synchronize files with a computer, the ability to open documents to external users, work with documents in offline mode, access to add-ons for Google Docs created by other developers, etc.
For those who do not have enough disk space , but the rest of the basic functionality suits, Google provides the possibility of expanding the space in Google Drive. By default, each Google Apps for Work user has space to store 30 GB of downloaded files on Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos mail. Users can independently or through the administrator purchase licenses for additional disk space. Please note that Google Apps Unlimited does not limit storage space, so for extended version accounts you do not need to purchase additional licenses for disk space.
If you watched the movie “Frames” (Internship), then it’s easy to remember the moment when two friends are interviewed by Google managers, communicating with them virtually using a microphone and a webcam. This Hangouts is a special application that allows you to communicate via a webcam and microphone with an arbitrarily distant point on the planet where the Internet is. Hangouts can hold video calls in HD format with up to 15 participants directly from your phone, tablet or laptop. This is a modern way of communication, which gives business new opportunities.
Modern business practice is actively using the achievements of technical progress - communication via the Internet has become the norm and is not surprising. If earlier personal meetings could be postponed due to the long preparation and coordination of the parties, now it is much easier to choose the time for business communication without departing from the workplace. This saving of time and money for organizing a meeting is attractive to all participants in the negotiations. Even if you and your business partner were eating in different districts or cities, you no longer need to stand in traffic jams, spend time and money on air travel - just join the meeting.
Any modern manager is faced with a huge flow of tasks - it is extremely difficult to keep track of everything. Google Apps has a built-in calendar with the possibility of setting tasks in it. Reminders will be sent to the mail about the need to complete the task and make a call. The calendar also shows appointments in the Hangouts.
A group calendar with excellent graphical implementation allows you to plan teamwork and create phased plans for project implementation. One glance at the calendar is enough to highlight areas of responsibility and clarify the milestone on which the project is located. If necessary, the calendar can be tied to the schedule of corporate transport, lunch, booking a meeting room, distribution of night duty and much more.
Virtually no one is building a business without their own corporate website. His creation is not an easy task, which requires a careful approach to the choice of artist. The site, in turn, can be used as a portal for the company's clients and as an internal portal for the exchange of information, the accumulation of a knowledge base, communication and the maintenance of corporate culture.
Google Apps provides the ability to create project sites — in an intuitive editor, creating a site is as easy as a text document, you don't need special programming skills, and no web designer is needed. On the project page you can report on milestones, tasks, events, etc.
During the life cycle of a company, a significant amount of valuable information is formed: customer data, corporate correspondence by mail and in chat rooms, documents, etc. ... Of course, each company ensures that its corporate data is safe. And there are groups of data that should be guaranteed to be protected from deletion, for example, working correspondence with important customers. To protect a range of data from unwanted losses, Google Apps additionally comes with the Safe service for archiving mail and chat accounts. If an employee leaves the company (especially not very good), the administrator locks his account and all data of correspondence, chat, and even search queries are stored in the "safe". In the administrator console, you can specify how long to store letters grouped by date, department, and a number of signs.
Actually, the admin console itself is a real control panel for the entire Google Apps ecosystem. With its help, the administrator can manage services, make settings, set a security policy (for example, two-stage authentication). In case of loss of a mobile device, the administrator blocks access to the data - and they definitely will not fall into the wrong hands. In general, any suspicious actions can be monitored using remote control functions and special audit tools.
Another advantage of Google Apps is the integration API with other services and ready-made integrations with a number of business applications. If you need to expand the pool of software used, you can go to the Google Marketplace and get the necessary applications and add-ons.
... a beginner advertising agency of 7 people.
Before Google Apps. A request comes from a customer to create a promo for a pizzeria. The account manager writes down contacts on a piece of paper, writes a letter asking him to fill out a brief, makes an appointment, writes a date in the diary. Three days later, the client sends the brief in an unreadable format, trying to open it in different editors. Account remembers the meeting shortly before her, rushing to the client's office. The client asks to wait - the day is lost. According to the brief, the cost of the project is calculated and a presentation is being prepared. At the client’s office, the presentation opens with image reading errors - a conflict between an open-source and licensed office application. After discussion, there is a long correspondence with the changes in the brief, the document changes beyond recognition, the comments written in the chat and told by phone are lost. The project begins to drag on, the deadline is superimposed on the deadline of another client ... Confusion, knocked deadlines.
With Google Apps. A request comes from a customer to create a promo for a pizzeria. The account manager provides the client with access to the brief form, opens the project, puts the contact in the mail. The client fills out the brief, discusses it with the account and the creatives at a convenient time in the Hangouts, makes joint edits. After working out the layouts, the designer demonstrates the presentation again using Hangouts - no problems in application compatibility. All correspondence is stored in the archive, tasks are distributed based on the urgency of each order - no overlaps. The work goes on, the discussion goes quickly, the client is satisfied.
Obviously, using Google Apps helps save time and allocate resources to assigned tasks. Work becomes more organized and dynamic, which in turn gives additional time, for example, to search for new customers.
Unfortunately, Google Apps are not available on the territory of Crimea - this is a temporary difficulty due to the external situation. Therefore, entrepreneurs from the Crimea will have to use other solutions to optimize business processes. However, as soon as Google re-opens access to Google Apps, it will be possible to easily migrate existing data and take full advantage of the offer.
Many are concerned about the problem of transferring the personal data of Russians to data centers based in Russia. So far, there are no official statements by Google, however, it is obvious that the company will not want to lose the Russian market and information about transferring some servers to Russia already appears in the media.
The introduction of Google Apps solution is promising for many companies - this is a great start to optimize all processes in the company. And what will be the IT-atmosphere of your business - it depends on you.
Thanks for attention!
A few years ago, the transition to electronic commerce, document management, CRM and ERP systems, project management systems was a growing trend. In 2015, this is an objective need of most companies from all sectors of the economy. Corporate software is firmly established in the life of Russian business and has affected almost all business processes. How do you breathe in your IT atmosphere?
Benefits of optimizing business processes with enterprise software
There are a lot of excuses that justify the refusal to use convenient corporate software: a small company, a young company, normal internal communication, few clients and so on ... In fact, all of them are untenable - using this kind of software is justified even if you are single Entrepreneur working as a director, manager, programmer and accountant in one person.
- The introduction of software applications for corporate use at an early stage ensures order in affairs. Sooner or later the company will expand, the flow of customers will increase - the moment will come when there will be lost customers, leads, applications.
- The use of such software ensures data integrity and protects the employer from losses caused by the departure of employees.
') - A corporate information system allows you to effectively accumulate experience, to form a knowledge base that will serve you well, for example, when training beginners or horizontal transfer of employees.
- A system of setting tasks and reminders is guaranteed - you will be a company with the image of a reliable and punctual partner.
Approach to the implementation of corporate software can be different: from the installation of simple software organizers to the deployment of complex expensive projects for the implementation of CRM and ERP. However, if you are a small company that develops in the market and is committed to increasing the volume of its customer base and profits, you should start with affordable, reliable solutions that optimize business processes. Such as Google Apps.
Email is the best Gmail experience.
Each business generates leads - a large pool of individuals for whom its products or services may be of interest. A lead can have a number of parameters: gender, age, hobbies, favorite colors and so on ... As a rule, these parameters are strictly dependent on the scope of the company and are not subject to unification. But there is one parameter that is of interest to business most of all - the user's contacts: telephone, address, e-mail. If you have once worked with the collection of data from the site or offline, you noticed that the address and telephone number is often provided false, but the e-mail is up to date.
Psychologically, people attribute their phone and residential address to a more private area than e-mail, which, moreover, can receive news from companies, for example, about promotions and discounts (relevant for B2B and B2C). In addition to the leads and contact details of existing customers, the business constantly conducts business correspondence - with partners, suppliers, authorities, fiscal authorities, etc. That is why almost the first request for corporate software: reliable, convenient and functional mail.
Google obviously knows a lot about corporate communications - which is why business users get from Google Apps not only reliable email that has absorbed the best Gmail practices, but also additional benefits. One of them is mail on your own domain. That is, if you have thebestme.ru website, then your email addresses will not look like ivanov89561@gmail.com , but like ivanov@thebestme.ru . Such mail looks more solid, inspires confidence in the sender and associates it with the company, which means that the letter will be more likely to be read. With Google Apps email, you can manage contacts and distribution groups, conduct business correspondence and produce newsletters with informational and marketing messages for your customers.
Google Apps Corporate Mail includes protection against spam - you will not waste time searching for the right emails and deleting numerous spam mailings. Built-in calendars and flexible productive search will not forget about one case and easily find the right correspondence in a few clicks. Corporate customers are guaranteed uninterrupted mail operation for 99.9% of the time and 30 GB is provided for data storage.
Documents, cloud storage and data sharing - everything is at hand
Many of the Internet users are familiar with the Google Docs service, which allows you to create text documents, spreadsheets and presentations online and offline, and the Google Drive service, which stores documents, photos and other files in the cloud. Of course, business needs to take full advantage of these solutions.
- Creating text documents, spreadsheets and presentations. In Google Apps documents you will see everything you are used to: formatting, styles, formulas, fonts, special characters, and so on ... In Google Apps, you can calculate a business plan, put it into tables, describe it with text, and immediately prepare a presentation. At the same time, all documents will be automatically saved during the work on them - this minimizes the risk of data loss in case of a sudden technical failure.
- Access to reading and editing files from any device - you can continue to work on an important document or view it in traffic, travel, business trip. You will not need to upload files to edit or comment on them.
- Joint editing - you can work on files simultaneously with your colleagues, without requiring you to close the file. Those who collected and agreed on a sales plan or created a description of the annual report in conjunction with other departments will truly appreciate this opportunity. In addition, co-editing saves time, which is usually spent on sending and editing multiple documents.
- Access by reference - you can differentiate access rights to the document and send the link to colleagues and all interested parties.
- If you find the basic functionality is not enough and you need new functions for permanent work, you can create scripts (here the analogy with macros is partly appropriate) and prescribe the necessary algorithms. To work with scripts need to own JavaScript.
Another type of document that can be created in Google Apps is profiles and web forms. They are created extremely simply and provide for verification of the correctness of the answer given by the respondent. According to the results of the study, an analyst is formed on the results with which it is possible to work in tables. This solution is useful for almost any business - you can easily survey users, find out customer preferences or collect feedback on the results of activity.
Need more features?
If for some reason you are not satisfied with the basic functionality of Google Apps, we recommend you to pay attention to the advanced version of the application - Google Apps Unlimited , supplied for a small additional fee. In this version, additional tools for auditing, reporting and administration of the Disk, unlimited disk space for data storage, as well as Google Safe for all employees of the organization are available. The enhanced version provides tangible benefits to users and system administrators.
Users get unlimited space to store files on Google Drive, messages in Gmail and photos on Google+ (if the organization has less than 5 employees, each user is provided with a 1 TB storage). Administrators can use Google Safe to work with the correspondence of employees (archiving, storage, export, search), search all the files of the Disk, access to the API and advanced audit features. User groups created by the administrator in the enhanced version of Google Apps Unlimited can synchronize files with a computer, the ability to open documents to external users, work with documents in offline mode, access to add-ons for Google Docs created by other developers, etc.
For those who do not have enough disk space , but the rest of the basic functionality suits, Google provides the possibility of expanding the space in Google Drive. By default, each Google Apps for Work user has space to store 30 GB of downloaded files on Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos mail. Users can independently or through the administrator purchase licenses for additional disk space. Please note that Google Apps Unlimited does not limit storage space, so for extended version accounts you do not need to purchase additional licenses for disk space.
Hangouts - a lot seen at a distance
If you watched the movie “Frames” (Internship), then it’s easy to remember the moment when two friends are interviewed by Google managers, communicating with them virtually using a microphone and a webcam. This Hangouts is a special application that allows you to communicate via a webcam and microphone with an arbitrarily distant point on the planet where the Internet is. Hangouts can hold video calls in HD format with up to 15 participants directly from your phone, tablet or laptop. This is a modern way of communication, which gives business new opportunities.
- You can hold business meetings without departing from the workplace. An additional advantage of such an organization of communications is the presence of all the necessary documents on the desktop of the computer. You definitely will not forget to take the necessary materials.
- You can present your presentation to colleagues and partners and even show your screen - now inter-regional meetings are as convenient as possible: you don’t need to go to an additional branch to the other end of the city or even a country, just schedule a meeting and send invitations to corporate email that will fall into the calendar and notify all participants before starting work.
- You can showcase your product to customers and hold informative or training webinars - you no longer need to expand the staff of regional managers. Your clients will be grateful for such an approach to the meeting - they will not need to get ready, just connect to the conversation.
- You can organize a live broadcast and broadcast a training or information seminar or conference for any number of users on your YouTube channel or on your web site. You can answer questions from users during the broadcast.
Modern business practice is actively using the achievements of technical progress - communication via the Internet has become the norm and is not surprising. If earlier personal meetings could be postponed due to the long preparation and coordination of the parties, now it is much easier to choose the time for business communication without departing from the workplace. This saving of time and money for organizing a meeting is attractive to all participants in the negotiations. Even if you and your business partner were eating in different districts or cities, you no longer need to stand in traffic jams, spend time and money on air travel - just join the meeting.
Calendar and tasks - remember everything
Any modern manager is faced with a huge flow of tasks - it is extremely difficult to keep track of everything. Google Apps has a built-in calendar with the possibility of setting tasks in it. Reminders will be sent to the mail about the need to complete the task and make a call. The calendar also shows appointments in the Hangouts.
A group calendar with excellent graphical implementation allows you to plan teamwork and create phased plans for project implementation. One glance at the calendar is enough to highlight areas of responsibility and clarify the milestone on which the project is located. If necessary, the calendar can be tied to the schedule of corporate transport, lunch, booking a meeting room, distribution of night duty and much more.
Sites, safe and other interesting features Google Apps
Virtually no one is building a business without their own corporate website. His creation is not an easy task, which requires a careful approach to the choice of artist. The site, in turn, can be used as a portal for the company's clients and as an internal portal for the exchange of information, the accumulation of a knowledge base, communication and the maintenance of corporate culture.
Google Apps provides the ability to create project sites — in an intuitive editor, creating a site is as easy as a text document, you don't need special programming skills, and no web designer is needed. On the project page you can report on milestones, tasks, events, etc.
During the life cycle of a company, a significant amount of valuable information is formed: customer data, corporate correspondence by mail and in chat rooms, documents, etc. ... Of course, each company ensures that its corporate data is safe. And there are groups of data that should be guaranteed to be protected from deletion, for example, working correspondence with important customers. To protect a range of data from unwanted losses, Google Apps additionally comes with the Safe service for archiving mail and chat accounts. If an employee leaves the company (especially not very good), the administrator locks his account and all data of correspondence, chat, and even search queries are stored in the "safe". In the administrator console, you can specify how long to store letters grouped by date, department, and a number of signs.
Actually, the admin console itself is a real control panel for the entire Google Apps ecosystem. With its help, the administrator can manage services, make settings, set a security policy (for example, two-stage authentication). In case of loss of a mobile device, the administrator blocks access to the data - and they definitely will not fall into the wrong hands. In general, any suspicious actions can be monitored using remote control functions and special audit tools.
Another advantage of Google Apps is the integration API with other services and ready-made integrations with a number of business applications. If you need to expand the pool of software used, you can go to the Google Marketplace and get the necessary applications and add-ons.
Now imagine ...
... a beginner advertising agency of 7 people.
Before Google Apps. A request comes from a customer to create a promo for a pizzeria. The account manager writes down contacts on a piece of paper, writes a letter asking him to fill out a brief, makes an appointment, writes a date in the diary. Three days later, the client sends the brief in an unreadable format, trying to open it in different editors. Account remembers the meeting shortly before her, rushing to the client's office. The client asks to wait - the day is lost. According to the brief, the cost of the project is calculated and a presentation is being prepared. At the client’s office, the presentation opens with image reading errors - a conflict between an open-source and licensed office application. After discussion, there is a long correspondence with the changes in the brief, the document changes beyond recognition, the comments written in the chat and told by phone are lost. The project begins to drag on, the deadline is superimposed on the deadline of another client ... Confusion, knocked deadlines.
With Google Apps. A request comes from a customer to create a promo for a pizzeria. The account manager provides the client with access to the brief form, opens the project, puts the contact in the mail. The client fills out the brief, discusses it with the account and the creatives at a convenient time in the Hangouts, makes joint edits. After working out the layouts, the designer demonstrates the presentation again using Hangouts - no problems in application compatibility. All correspondence is stored in the archive, tasks are distributed based on the urgency of each order - no overlaps. The work goes on, the discussion goes quickly, the client is satisfied.
Obviously, using Google Apps helps save time and allocate resources to assigned tasks. Work becomes more organized and dynamic, which in turn gives additional time, for example, to search for new customers.
Instead of an afterword
Unfortunately, Google Apps are not available on the territory of Crimea - this is a temporary difficulty due to the external situation. Therefore, entrepreneurs from the Crimea will have to use other solutions to optimize business processes. However, as soon as Google re-opens access to Google Apps, it will be possible to easily migrate existing data and take full advantage of the offer.
Many are concerned about the problem of transferring the personal data of Russians to data centers based in Russia. So far, there are no official statements by Google, however, it is obvious that the company will not want to lose the Russian market and information about transferring some servers to Russia already appears in the media.
The introduction of Google Apps solution is promising for many companies - this is a great start to optimize all processes in the company. And what will be the IT-atmosphere of your business - it depends on you.
Thanks for attention!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/262547/
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