Learning to break traditional patterns
The story between Team Foods and Xertica dates back to 2011. At that time, migration to the cloud was a bet as the company had on-premise technology through Lotus Domino. As is often the case when the mail server was based in a private data center, complaints began to arise about email quotas, technical support and access. Thus, Team Foods considered it appropriate to evaluate a new mail provider. The candidates were Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange and Google.
Google, through its Google Workspace email, communication and collaboration platform, had a totally different scheme: 100% in the cloud. Without servers or the traditional usage system, “without quotas” (given the large storage capacities it offered, compared to the maximum usage quotas of 200 MB that Lotus Domino provided). In 2011, Google offered minimum capacities of 15 GB, which was perceived as unnecessary. Currently, after years of adoption and the growth of email as the main communication and coordination channel, the rates offered by Google Workspace make total sense.
“Suddenly leaving something that is already known (that one manages, that one knows its different situations and attends to them) into an unknown world generates that feeling of insecurity. But when you face that this new world really eliminates all those situations that we had to deal with, you understand that you have changed to a much better platform,” recalls Manuel Sánchez, Information Technology Operations Coordinator at Team Foods. He adds: “We had up to 300 cases per month due to Lotus situations: the installation of the client, the email was degraded, which did not replicate the information. When we moved to this web experience (in the cloud), all these complaints and situations began to decrease as the user self-manages everything and there is no longer technical support with email. This took away a large operational burden that we had with the data center. I stopped needing to go to the plant once a week to do a backup that took around 16 hours.”
Year 2014
As the months passed, Team Foods' adoption of Google Workspace at the email level grew. However, the platform came with a series of components: an office suite that included documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Certainly, the adoption of said office automation generated resistance. The need for a technological partner to lead the adoption that would lead the entire organization to enjoy the Google Workspace experience was reaffirmed. In this context, Xertica ensured that, through a series of personalized trainings, the Team Foods work teams discovered all the advantages that Google Workspace office automation brought at a collaboration level.
In this way, it was decided to reduce Microsoft Office licenses from 3,000 to 250 (only for the Accounting and Finance areas) and reinforce the use of Google Workspace office automation. “Writing a memo or letter did not require an Office license for our collaborators to prepare documents of that type. We started this with very basic users such as assistants, practitioners. Little by little we have extended this practice to basically the entire organization. Today thousands of documents are produced and stored in Drive,” highlights Sánchez.
The adoption of Google Workspace office automation brought positive collateral effects. Manuel Sánchez notes: “Previously, there was a backup scheme for user stations, which required a technical and economic effort in the data center, with the aggravating factor that sometimes data is lost and its recovery becomes difficult.” complex. Now we rely on Drive, where our files rest. This has allowed us to reduce the load associated with backup copies in our data centers. If a resource (say, a machine) is damaged, the user can easily take another resource and capture all their day-to-day information instantly, without doing installations, restores or anything else.”
In addition to this, Team Foods has a tool that allows you to recover information from inactive users, whether they remain in the organization or have ceased to belong. Cloud storage changed the way we work, says Sánchez: “Team Foods users have seen the value of no longer having a document moving through different versions and copies. Before I sent an email with an attached document and copied it to 20 people. There were 20 versions of that document in 20 different users. Already with Google Workspace, our collaborators have understood that it is enough to create a document without the need to copy and distribute it: we can all interact around it and in the end only one version is generated that all users share to have reliability and security of their information ”.
Work continuity in times of Covid-19
“We have been with Google since 2011 and we were quite advanced on the path” is the way in which Manuel Sánchez responds to how Team Foods reacted to the contingency derived from the spread of the coronavirus. “People here talk about Google Workspace, their daily life is Google Workspace with all its aspects. Thus, when we faced this situation, we isolated ourselves not on the date that the government indicated, but from a week before because we were really prepared to address the challenge. The President of the company gave the order, he asked Technology how the access and work at home was. To our satisfaction, we were 100% prepared.”
Xertica's strategic participation prepared Team Foods to not only understand the usability and email management advantages of Google Workspace, as well as the collaboration and storage advantages of its office automation, but also its communication tools. “Meet is one of the most important elements in this way of working. Facilitates face-to-face meetings with anyone in the world. Communication is established, whether they have Google accounts or not, very instantly. I don't have to call anyone for support or deploy a team to assist whoever participates in a video conference. All reinforced by the possibility that communication with Meet can be done from any device: tablets, mobile phones, laptops, desktops. Everything has been 100% productive.”
On the level of use of Meet in times of Covid-19: “Currently, if I add Chile, Mexico and Colombia, we have more than 200 sessions on average per day, without this collapsing any type of connection or Google going to have any deterioration or degradation in its service. We have many meetings in the organization of all work fronts. It has been a very positive experience,” emphasizes Manuel Sánchez. To which he concludes: “For us it is an experience gained over many years, people have already been working with Google Workspace in a quite full and concrete way. Well, that has made it easier to address this situation. Teams Foods operations have continued to develop in a completely natural way.”
Usage Metrics - April 2020
- 2,596 files shared with external users.
- 462,668 files shared with internal users.
- 13,164 emails sent from Gmail.
- 81,512 emails received in Gmail.
- 84'219,622 MB in files stored in Drive.
- 11,181 video calls on Meet.
