Case Study | Google Apps

Epitome Travel Solutions achieves a synchronised work environment with Google Apps

www.epitometravels.com

At a Glance What they wanted to do • Access emails across various regions within India while travelling • A reliable email system that would enhance the business’ performance What they did • Used Gmail to solve storage and reliability issues • Transitioned to using Google Drive, Google Chat, Calendar and Sites to increase communication and collaboration What they accomplished • Reduction of IT costs by 40% • A 20% improvement in work efficiency • An increase in revenue by 25% - 35% 

Business Epitome Travel Solutions is a travel services provider based in New Delhi, India. A fairly new business that entered the market in 2011, the company now has offices located within five major cities across India and employs 300 staff. It plans to expand its market presence and extend its services worldwide through partnerships with international travel agencies. Challenge The company was using an open source email solution to host its employees’ email accounts. However, they realised that this email platform presented reliability and accessibility issues. Employees who had to travel for work to various locations in India found that they could not access their email accounts on their laptops. As a business that relies very much on customer service, the slow IT performance resulted in a complete lack of information access which prevented employees from staying connected and updated with work matters. As a relatively new entrant to the travel business, the business was getting low margin returns and felt the pressure to keep operating costs as low as possible. As the nature of the travel industry is very fast-paced, this meant that Epitome Travel Solutions had to continually deliver high levels of performance to its partners and customers. Solution Searching for an alternative email platform that could resolve their email system issues and yet be completely reliable was a priority for the business as that would mean that they could operate at their desired performance level and meet the expectations of their partners and customers. Google Apps was offering trial services for up to 50 users at that time and the Chief Intelligence Officer of Epitome Travel Solutions, Vishwajeet Singh, decided to give Gmail a try.

“The best part of switching to Google Apps is that when I’m travelling, I can easily communicate with my colleagues by going online. That is not only saving on the costs of having to call overseas but also provides great ease when you know that you’re able to connect with people when you’re out of the office.” —Vishwajeet Singh, Chief Intelligence Officer, Epitome Travel Solutions

One main criterion that was used to evaluate the system was accessibility. It was absolutely essential that employees were able to access their emails from anywhere in the world and Google Apps was able to provide that. Vishwajeet highlighted that the company had no intentions of using the other features of Google Apps as they were only looking for an email system that

About Google Apps

Google Apps is a cloud-based productivity suite that helps you and your team connect and get work done from anywhere on any device. Google Apps includes Gmail, Google Calendar (shared calendaring), Google Drive (online content storage and sharing), and Google Docs, Sheets & Slides (document creation and collaboration). For more information visit www.google.co.in/apps

would work for them. “But when we started using Google Apps, we realised that it was reliable, secure, and easy to use – it was the kind of service that we were looking for” he said. The company then moved its users from other platforms to Google Apps. Today, they have 100 active users. Results Its employees are now able to access their emails from anywhere in India and no longer have to worry about email performance. The company was also previously using its intranet to create internal email groups and that resulted in higher costs due to increase in storage space needed to store all the information. They can now do that using Gmail and have seen a reduction in intranet costs. Vishwajeet estimates that Google Apps has helped the company reduce costs by 40%. “The best part of switching to Google Apps is that when I’m travelling, I can easily communicate with my colleagues by going online. That is not only saving on the costs of having to call overseas but also provides great ease when you know that you’re able to connect with people when you’re out of the office,” he added. “Google Apps is very user-friendly and we are very happy using it as it has improved workflow processes for us,” Vishwajeet said. Information updates can now be received in real-time as employees communicate via chat instead of having to call or wait for an email reply. Previously, they had to email attachments back and forth. Employees have reported that they are much happier with Google Apps as they are ensured that emails and attachments will be delivered to the intended recipients on time. Collaboration plays a huge role in the company and being able to share documents and simultaneously work on them has contributed to a 20% increase in efficiency. “Google Apps has provided us with a synchronised environment. When people are in sync, they can collaborate in a more efficient manner and it’s obvious that this will have a positive impact on revenues . I would say that we’ve seen a 25%- 35% increase in revenue because of that,” Vishwajeet said. “Google also keeps adding more and more services to its current suite of Apps. At the end of the day, you feel that it is more lively and there are new things happening which is further going to help you” he concluded.

© 2012 Google Inc. All rights reserved. Google and the Google logo are trademarks of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. SS2039-1212