The challenge: operational and administrative under the same domain
For years, in the stage prior to the adoption of G Suite, Librerías Gandhi's collaborators had the Exchange and Open Exchange solution and GoDaddy hosting. Certainly, the members of the organization were accustomed to using Office and Outlook and had a number of specific licenses to operate the email database. However, there were two domains: one for operational staff and another for administrative staff. This was with the idea of providing different limits on the capacity of the mailbox, depending on the nature of the collaborator (administrative workers had access to greater storage capacity in relation to operational workers, who were mainly dedicated to serving in stores).
This brought coordination problems and little transparency and fluidity in communication. Phrases like “remember that it has another domain, don't make a mistake with the address when sending the email” were common in Librerias Gandhi. To address this, Xertica was turned to for the migration and implementation of G Suite under a mixed licensing scheme between Basic and Business, but with a unified and official domain for the entire organization.
“A comparison was made where we validated the different benefits you can obtain and with the possibility of saving licensing costs (G Suite with a much lower cost). In addition to a cost advantage, G Suite allowed us to integrate the operation into a single domain,” says Julián López Carbonell, IT Director at Librerías Gandhi.
In addition to the above, G Suite helped Librerias Gandhi overcome deficiencies that arose when working with Exchange such as smaller limits in terms of storage capacity, the forced management of two domains, as well as a fairly reduced administrative part in question. email review (for example, if someone from the corporation resigned, their history information needed to be physically backed up to avoid loss).
Transforming work dynamics
The area that best adopted the solution was the operational staff in stores (which represents 70% of the company's human resources), who were previously limited by the use of Open Office. For Commercial Management, this ability to establish remote communication and share information represented advantages in terms of reporting and agile action. This explains why the three best received tools were Drive, Hangouts and Meet, according to Julián López. On the other hand, with the new Google solution, the IT area of Librerías Gandhi radically changed the operation and absorbed the process of all the tools.
At the Drive, HO and Meet level, the benefit was very clear. “Previously, we used an outdated tool for instant communication. Thus, HO and Meet were adopted completely and without complications,” emphasizes Julián López. For those who had Open Office, the transition has been even more natural.
Regarding the security offered by Google Cloud, Julián López says: “We have not found any important point of weakness. We are confident that we are protected. Today, in any communication - at the systems level - we realize who is sharing information, what information is being shared, among other functionalities.”
Suppliers, collaboration and communication with G Suite outwards
At Librerías Gandhi it has already been established as a standard that, when an IT provider comes in, they are assigned an email account to have all communication, all files, everything protected in the same environment. As Julián López Carbonell emphasizes: “We want all files to be registered and remain in our domain. “This has given us much greater control with all the information that is contributed to the projects.”
As part of the expansion in its operations and reach, the company has had projects with multiple foreign suppliers. In that sense, Hangouts and Meet make the communication process easier for them. As an example, it is worth mentioning the project to implement a point of sale with a Canadian company. The project was carried out 85% remotely. They were also G Suite users, which streamlined the project and saved costs associated with travel and per diem. However, when the provider is not a G Suite user, a domain associated with the email @gandhi.com.mx is assigned.
The migration lasted a month and a half. There was a roll out of training for corporates. The mixed licensing consists of 470 G Suite Basic and 100 G Suite Business accounts. Today, the company already has more than 11 Chromebox devices to work in a completely G Suite scheme.
