Woolworths Store Managers go Google

Last week Woolworths Limited equipped their 890 Supermarket Store Managers with the mobility iPads provide. Our managers can now stay abreast of administrative tasks while still maintaining their shop floor presence and focusing on their customers. The mobility has been further bolstered with the collaborative power of Google Apps for Business, as each Woolworths Manager now has a Gmail account.

We also added a custom-made application, Tap for Support, which is built on Google App Engine. Tap for Support is a one-click app that allows staff to log a support ticket with Woolworths HQ. In an instant, a Manager can log a support request for example to fix a faulty freezer and get back to the multitude of other tasks at hand. Tap for Support not only streamlines administrative functions, it also enables our Managers to do it on the move.

Having Tap for Support running on Google App Engine means we leverage Google’s infrastructure, not just to host and store the app, but to build it as well. This removes many layers of complexity, and the simple licensing on consumption structure means it can scale very quickly when we need it to.

It was very important that we picked something that was totally easy to use and most people are familiar with the intuitive nature of Google from their personal lives. As Google is cloud-based and device agnostic, it enables us to work the system across our existing and future IT infrastructure.

Guest post by Damon Rees, Head of Run IT, Woolworths Limited

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Introducing Google Maps Coordinate: Organise teams on the move

This is a cross-post from the Google LatLong Blog.


Imagine you are a call centre operator at an electric utility company. A call comes in reporting a downed powerline in one of the northern suburbs of your city, and an entire neighborhood is without power. You need to quickly dispatch one of your line repairers to the site, which is almost an hour away. To save time and get the power back up quickly, you want to know which line repairers are already in the area and send them the relevant information about the job.

That’s where Google Maps Coordinate comes in, a new tool designed to improve communication between businesses and their employees in the field. As the number of mobile employees continues to grow, so does the need for a location sharing solution that works in real-time. Research firm IDC estimates that there will be over 1.3 billion mobile workers by 2015 (37.2% of the total workforce).* Google Maps Coordinate combines the power of Google’s mapping technologies with modern smartphones to help organisations assign jobs and deploy staff more efficiently.

When a business signs up for Google Maps Coordinate, they get access to the Google Maps Coordinate web and mobile apps.

Employees in the field download the mobile app to their phone and then can:

• Share real-time location. Google Maps Coordinate is built on Google’s mapping and geolocation infrastructure so the app will send an accurate location, even if you’re indoors (Google Maps Coordinate integrates with Google Indoor Maps).

• Record data. Mobile teams often need to collect information while out in the field. Google Maps Coordinate allows the admin to customise the fields that the mobile team needs to capture and collect – from measurements to client contact details – directly in the app.

Meanwhile, a designated dispatcher back in the office can:

• Create teams: Add team members to a Google Maps Coordinate team and see their locations in the Google Maps Coordinate web and mobile app.  For example, our electric utility company might create a special team for home electricians and another for line repairers.
• Manage jobs. Easily create jobs, precisely locate the job, assign the job to the nearest team member and notify them instantly.  The next time there is a downed powerline, the operator at the utility company will have no problem identifying the closest team member and assigning them to investigate the issue.  

• View past jobs and locations. Get the hard data you need to make strong business decisions. With Google Maps Coordinate, businesses can easily visualise the locations of all their jobs and teams, including current and past jobs.  Businesses can assess where they should be assigning or hiring more workers and how to optimally place their teams.

Any business can sign up for Google Maps Coordinate. Google Maps Coordinate is built to work seamlessly with the entire Google Enterprise Maps and Earth experience, and it comes with an API that can integrate with any of your existing systems.  

Contact our sales team or a Google Enterprise Maps and Earth reseller if you’re interested in signing up for
Google Maps Coordinate. Share your Google Maps Coordinate use cases and feedback on our Enterprise G+ page.

*IDC, Worldwide Mobile Worker Population 2011-2015 Forecast, Doc #232073, December 2011

Posted by Daniel Chu, Senior Product Manager

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What are you working for?

We asked small businesses in Australia “What are you working for?” Their responses were as diverse as the businesses themselves. But there were two things all of them had in common. The first was a passion for what they did. The second was a desire for more time to focus on their business, rather than on the operational details -- like technology.

While many understood that using the Internet could make their lives easier - to find customers, to run and promote their business, even to save costs - they had been slow to adopt it because they often didn’t know how and who to ask. At Google, we want to make it easy for small businesses to succeed. This is why we launched Getting Aussie Business Online last year, which gives businesses a free domain name and website. Today we’re launching another set of resources -- at www.whatareyouworkingfor.com -- to help small businesses learn how to use Internet technologies to operate more efficiently.

At www.whatareyouworkingfor.com business owners and managers can learn from their counterparts around Australia who have already taken the leap to Google Apps. Like George Perry at Choice, a leading consumer advocacy group, who turned on Gmail and Google Calendar for the whole company... overnight! Or John O’Neil, owner and builder at O’Neil Construction who said Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs have helped him exceed his clients’ expectations while letting him spend more time outside the office. Karen Huby is a project manager at Sitback, a Sydney based design studio, who says Google Apps has helped take the stress away from her everyday job. No longer chained to her office desktop, she is now fully productive on her mobile from anywhere.

The site contains a repository of relevant content from Google and from around the web on topics that address real questions around how small businesses work. At any time, business managers can sign-up for a 30-day free trial of Google Apps to experience the benefits of these tools in their own business environments.

The Internet is redefining how most businesses work. We hope you find these resources useful in helping you consider how you want to work in 2012.

Posted by Jeremy Wood, Marketing Manager, Google Enterprise

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The evolution of enterprise software

This is a cross-post from the Google Enterprise Blog.

Last week our chairman Eric Schmidt took the stage at Dreamforce with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff to discuss the evolution of computing. In a wide-ranging conversation, they covered everything from the network computer to the consumerisation of IT to the emerging primacy of mobile, social and local. You can watch the keynote here:

Eric pointed out that it’s the cloud that is allowing us to upend the old software model. High cost. Complex. Quickly out-of-date. Difficult to replace. We’ve exhausted what can be done with client-server.



Consumer technology is now shaping enterprise software, and it’s transforming the way we live and work. Ubiquitous. Easy to use. Flexible. Constantly innovating. Built for teams. We’ve embraced a user-first, 100% web approach with Google Apps, and it’s a big reason why more than 40 million people now use Apps. We also announced that 4 million businesses run on Apps and another 5,000 join the movement every day.



But of all the ideas Eric and Marc discussed, one resonated with me most: “Life is short, you should spend it working with people you enjoy.”

Posted by Amit Singh, Vice President, Google Enterprise

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Teach your old docs new tricks with Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office

This is a cross-post from the Official Google Enterprise Blog.

Millions of businesses are experiencing radical productivity gains with web-powered tools, and today Google Apps collaboration is ready for every employee. We’re bringing multi-person, simultaneous editing to the Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications that coworkers may still need from time to time. More people will be able to achieve a 100% web future entirely in Google Docs after learning the benefits of web-powered collaboration within traditional software.

Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office is now available to all users worldwide, letting two or more people work together on the same file at the same time in Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 or 2010 on Windows PCs. For example, you can edit a Word document’s table of contents from Dublin while coworkers adjust formatting and make revisions from Denver. Instead of bombarding each other with attachments and hassling to reconcile people’s edits, your whole team can focus on productive work together.

Google Cloud Connect vastly improves Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 and 2010, so companies can start using web-enabled teamwork tools without upgrading Microsoft Office or implementing SharePoint 2010.

Comparison of collaboration alternatives

Today we’re also introducing the 90-Day Appsperience program globally so businesses encumbered with 1990s technology can experience modern collaboration and the burst of productivity that’s possible now. Whether you manage IT for your whole business, lead a department, or manage a complex project like an industry event, a nominal fee covers 90-day unlimited use of Google Apps collaboration plus hands-on support from Google experts. To help companies measure the productivity impact of better teamwork -- and ultimately pay for what they really need instead of desktop software that could sit on the shelf -- the new collaboration dashboard in the Google Apps for Business and Education control panel provides aggregated activity metrics to administrators. Both Google Cloud Connect and this collaboration dashboard are available in English, with many more supported languages to follow soon.

This year we look forward to bringing you countless stories on the Google Enterprise Blog from schools, businesses and other organizations that are becoming much more productive with Google Apps. To get the wheels turning, check out the transformation that’s speeding ahead at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.



Join me for a live webinar on March 3rd, 2011 at 10am PST / 1pm EST / 6pm GMT to learn more about Google Cloud Connect and the 90-Day Appsperience program. Register to attend the live event.



Posted by Shan Sinha, Google Apps Product Manager

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REA Group and Google Maps

Posted by Richard Suhr, Enterprise Team

You probably know a lot about Google Maps, our free online Australian mapping service. We've written about the many great new features on this blog.

But did you know that we also have an enterprise version of Google Maps, for businesses that want to use Google Maps on their websites, with full enterprise-level support? A great example is when you visit a real estate site - by using Google Maps, the website owner can show you the property location, with the ability to zoom in or see satellite views.

We're thrilled to announce a new Enterprise Agreement with REA Group, which runs www.realestate.com.au and 16 other sites in 9 countries. REA Group uses Google Maps on its property details pages to show home hunters where properties are located. See an example here (nice property - we can all dream!)

Under the new agreement, the REA Group will begin using Google Maps in all its websites around the world (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Hong Kong, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom) and will continue to use Google Maps in Australia and New Zealand.

We're looking forward to developing our relationship with REA Group and to playing a small part in helping home-hunters find (literally) the house of their dreams.

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Hosted site searches for Australian businesses

Posted by Deepak Ramanathan, Marketing Manager

Australian businesses, like their global counterparts, spend a lot of effort and energy creating and promoting great websites for their products and services, but quality search is often missing. As a result, businesspeople often ask us why they can't use Google to power search on their sites.

Today we've released Custom Search Business Edition (CSBE) to do just that. CSBE is a hosted site search solution that provides Google-quality results for your website. It's fast, relevant, reliable, and flexible, so that users can quickly find what they're looking for through search results customised and integrated into your business website.

CSBE builds on the Google Custom Search Engine, a hosted search solution we introduced last October that allows organisations to create a search engine and search results that are tailored to their point of view. This is all well and good, but businesses have asked us for greater flexibility and support - and we're addressing these needs through CSBE.

Businesses that want further control over results presentation and integration with their website can obtain results through XML. Now those of you with business sites have the option to turn off ads and have further control over branding. In addition, CSBE provides options for email and phone support. The pricing starts at US$100 per year for searching up to 5,000 pages.

This offering should be a great help to all the Australian businesses that have a web presence but don't offer users any way to search the site. Instead of being left on their own to navigate content, visitors to CSBE-enabled sites will be able to navigate through search results without ever leaving the site. We hope an improved customer search experience will translate into more referrals, more opportunities for e-commerce, and more satisfied online customers for these Australian businesses. Here's more about CSBE.

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Google Australia at MGSM

Posted by Jared Evans, Account Coordinator

Despite the GPS's best efforts to send us into the depths of Chatswood's woodlands (we should have checked Google Maps first), a team of Googlers arrived at MGSM last week to present at a careers information session for MBA students and alumni.

(Google was last week named the No. 1 preferred destination for US MBA students and we hope to emulate that in Australia!)

The aim of the evening was to promote the many career opportunities available at Google Australia and to create awareness of the nature of our operations here. Australian Googler #1, Kate Vale, Head of Sales and Operations, outlined Google Australia's foundations and gave an insight into our activities in Australia, our company culture and our aspirations for the future. The key message for the evening? "We've got a long way to go toward achieving our mission. We need your help to get there."

The audience of full time "MBAers", managers and professionals studying part-time yielded many job-seekers, which our recruitment team are quite excited about!

During the networking session afterwards, the attendees revealed a very keen interest in what Google Australia does beyond search, consumer products and providing an advertising platform. Many were pleasantly surprised to learn that Google provides business solutions.

We are extremely pleased with the positive feedback from those that attended and will endeavour to bring the presentation to similar arenas in the near future.

Thank you to all of you who gave your time last week. If you have any further further feedback to add, we'd be very interested to hear it!

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Google Australia at CeBIT

Posted by Ashley Gorringe, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Last week, amid a sea of 100" plasma screens and innumerable cool gadgets, Google Australia took its place at CeBIT, the large information and communications technology show held in Sydney.

Google's presence at the event was headlined by Dave Girouard, our Vice President, Enterprise. Dave's keynote speech focused on the opportunity that Google Apps (calendar, e-mail and office software) and other Google Enterprise products offer in the workplace. Over 1,000 Australian businesses have started using Apps since its release. Glen Speckert, also from the Enterprise team, spoke about Google's role in providing geospatial services to Governments.

The Google stand gave us the opportunity to meet some of the estimated 30,000 attendees who went through the event. Our AdWords online team members, who spend a lot of their time answering requests via email or the phone, got a fantastic face-to-face opportunity to walk clients through the sign-up process and, in the course these sessions, provide advice on how to get the most out of AdWords.

We received plenty of great stories about how AdWords has worked for different clients. We're going to continue to reach out and communicate with our Australian users and partners. And, of course, our engineers are always working to develop and roll out new innovations.

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