Some Nigerian businesses reducing IT costs by over 35% with
Google Apps for Business
Google recently organised a breakfast session at the Southern
Sun Hotel, Ikoyi, Lagos, to provide businesspeople in Nigeria with the
opportunity to learn about Google Enterprise services, with a special focus on
Google Apps for Business. Google Apps
for Business facilitates greater productivity, easier teamwork and
collaboration, more flexibility, reliability and security, and also helps
businesses save money.
The Apps include Google Search, Gmail for business, Google
Chrome, Google Maps, Google Calendar, and the Google Cloud platform.
The event, which was sponsored by leading IT Solutions
companies, DataGroup IT and Descasio Limited was well attended by senior
executives from small, medium and large scale organisations.
With a presentation on how Google’s Search Appliance can help
customers find relevant information on business websites, Shai Morgan, Regional
Manager, Google Enterprise, explained that the Google App suite offers simple
communication and collaboration tools for businesses of all sizes, all hosted
by Google in the cloud, to simplify set-up, minimize maintenance and reduce IT
costs. Morgan added that with Google Groups and integrated Instant Messaging
(IM), users can stay connected while on the move. “With Google Docs, users can share files and
work together in real time, ensuring that everyone is working on the same
version of a document all at the same time”, he said.
Google Apps help businesses manage electronic communications
effectively and at low costs. They are already being used by leading businesses
in West Africa, including Transcorp Plc, Churchgate Group and Fidelity Bank,
Ghana.
According to President/CEO of Transcorp, Obinna Ufudo, “We
operate a lean structure at the corporate centre. Our subsidiaries are located
in other cities and our business requires employees to work in different
locations. Therefore, we needed a robust email solution that addresses our
concerns about reliability, convenience, security, ease of use and
accessibility. Compared to other email solutions, Google Apps has been ideal
for us.”
Similarly, Churchgate chose Google Apps in 2012 to fulfill
its need for email storage space and for consistent, constant and reliable
communication between the company and its customers. Prior to the change,
Churchgate was using another solution but, as Head of IT for Churchgate,
Manjunath Bhat, explains, “Storage was limited because of server space and,
because it has always been vital that we store all of our emails given that any
one of them could contain key information, we adopted Google Apps.”
Bhat is grateful that Descasio Limited, a Nigerian-based
Google Apps Authorized reseller encouraged them to make the switch. In Bhat’s
words, “During the pilot stage of the move, Churchgate was delighted to
discover that Google Apps provided exactly what we needed in terms of large
mail storage space and handling communication among the different geographies
we operate in.”
By synchronizing their mailbox with employees’ mobile
devices, they can stay up to speed with information and updates at every project
stage, no matter where they are. They are also able to reduce the cost of IT
infrastructure. The Head of IT disclosed that “we have achieved a reduction in
operation cost and IT expenditure of over 35 percent since switching to Google
Apps.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment