GOOGLE APPS CASE Study

Both new and established companies turn to Google Apps to curb costs

For more information, visit http://www.google.com/a BUSINESSES

Rapidly expanding Washington, D.C.-based consulting services company focused on Business Process Management (BPM) Goal: Develop and grow a startup business while minimizing IT costs Challenge: Reduce total cost of ownership for communication and collaboration solutions

Large office products distributor with 400 Sales Partners in 45 states and Mexico Goal: Reduce IT costs and complexity while streamlining communication among Sales Partners Challenge: Cost-effectively equip 500 far-flung users with industry-leading email and collaboration solutions; easily scale for growth

Businesses Washington, D.C.-based Counterpoint Consulting was founded by three software industry denizens who had worked as software engineers, technology managers, IT managers, and consultants. The rapidly expanding company provides business process management (BPM) services that enable companies to better manage their IT. Indoff’s Director of IT Shawn Faulkingham had similar considerations for his fast-growing company, which exchanges information daily with its sales partners. Indoff, founded in 1971, is a large office products distributor with 400 sales partners in 45 states and Mexico. Approach Keen on following its own sound management advice, Counterpoint Consulting strives to run its start-up efficiently and cost-effectively. From the outset, the founders’ goal was a “zeroIT” model. “Our experience in IT led us to conclude that there is no competitive advantage whatsoever for a company like ours – and virtually any new business these days – in running IT operations in-house,” says cofounder Steve Markmann. Even with 30 years in its industry, Indoff needs to watch its costs, yet continually update, refine and improve its technological capabilities. Since Indoff’s operations pivot around email, Faulkingham was spending a good chunk of his day pushing email and dealing with delivery issues. “On any given day our employees and sales partners swap 200,000 emails. In this business, our partners don’t tolerate getting an email six hours late or not receiving one at all,” Faulkingham says. Stuck with a server-based solution that drained IT resources and was inadequate for handling the volume of electronic communications, Faulkingham began looking for alternatives.

With Google Apps: • Streamlined operations and lower costs reduce strain on IT • Easily-deployed services enhance business scalability • Best of breed communication tools allow employees to be more productive and efficient

“At $50 per user, we are saving tens of thousands each year in both hard and soft costs.” Shawn Faulkingham Indoff Director of IT

“We chose Google Apps because of its low price, the quality of the software and exceptional service agreements.”

Solution For the team of self-proclaimed “open-source geeks” at Counterpoint Consulting, it was never a question of paying for email or other applications they could run by themselves. However, the Counterpoint team knew from experience that even solutions based on open-source software are not free. “Even if we went with an open-source solution, we knew we would have to maintain our own servers, do our own backups and administer the applications ourselves,” explains Markmann. “We chose Google Apps because of its low price, the quality of the software and exceptional service agreements.”

GOOGLE APPS Case Study

ABOUT GOOGLE APPS Google Apps is a suite of customizable applications that includes Gmail (email), Google Calendar (shared calendaring), Google Docs (shared documents, spreadsheets, and presentations) Google Talk (instant messaging and voice over IP) and a Start Page (an internal homepage). Google Apps offers editions tailored to specific customer needs including a Standard Edition (ideal for family domains), Education Edition (K-12 schools, colleges and universities), Premier Edition (businesses of all sizes) and Partner Edition (Internet Service Providers and portals). For more information, visit http://www.google.com/a

“We need communication and collabroation tools that scale easily as we grow and reduce our total cost of ownership.” Steve Markmann Cofounder, Counterpoint Consulting

Both Counterpoint Consulting and Indoff decided that Apps could help streamline their IT while at the same time support rapid growth. For these companies, Apps proved the cost-effective choice, simple to deploy and easy to use. Just as important, Apps Premier Edition offers features that enable companies to plan for growth more easily by setting a firm $50 per-user per-year price and allowing for the addition of new accounts instantly anytime. For Indoff’s Faulkingham, equally attractive is Apps’ guaranteed uptime, as well as the security feature ensuring that anyone who uses an Apps account has to give explicit permission for their business documents and other information to be shared. Results Streamlined operations and lower costs reduce strain on IT Google has lowered the cost of operations for Indoff and reduced the strain on its IT staff, freeing employees to focus on more strategic work. Says Faulkingham, “Google Apps is incredibly robust, and it can handle a large volume of email. At $50 per user, Apps saves us tens of thousands each year in both hard and soft costs.” For Counterpoint Consulting, lower total cost of ownership has helped to enable company growth. In addition, Counterpoint has been able to remove IT infrastructure management from its day-to-day concerns. Says Markmann, “Google Apps is a no-brainer, because it allows us to focus on what we do best: develop and grow our business.” Easily-deployed services enhance business scalability Another important consideration for both companies was that Apps can easily scale to accommodate new users without having to plan far in advance or purchase additional capacity before it’s needed. Says Markmann, “With Apps, we can grow our billable staff as needed and avoid a commensurate increase in IT overhead and a lot of advance planning.” Markmann compares the move to Apps as simple as “flipping a switch.” The experience for Indoff was also smooth; within two weeks, its employees and sales partners had moved to Apps. Faulkingham found the setup process to be intuitive and says the migration to Apps was “simple and painless – exactly what we were hoping for.” He is also enthusiastic that everyone has access to the communication and collaboration tools they need regardless of their location – an important factor for Indoff’s far-flung network of partners. Best of breed communication tools allow employees to be more productive and efficient For growing companies like Indoff and Counterpoint Consulting, Apps provides tools that help keep everyone working efficiently. In addition to using Gmail exclusively for email, Indoff employees have delved deeper into Apps’ collaboration features. Employees use the Start Page as the entry point to all of the Apps tools, as well as Google Docs for tracking projects. Google Calendar keeps everyone’s schedules in sync, and Google Talk is a mainstay, especially for support personnel who need to be in close contact while untangling technical issues. “I foresee the collaboration tools in Apps as growing in importance,” says Faulkingham, who notes that the uptime and reduced incoming spam have also increased productivity. Having switched from its own custom-developed tools based on open-source software, Counterpoint now uses Apps extensively for email, instant messaging, shared calendaring and document storage, creation and collaboration. Gmail and Calendar get the most use, followed by Docs; as consultants, staff members at Counterpoint are often geographically remote from each other, and they need to create and share documents in fast, simple ways. “We use spreadsheets for budgeting, project planning and other tasks involving multiple people,” says Markmann. “It’s a big advantage to be able to share and edit a document in real-time.”

© Copyright 2008. Google is a trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.