Is Google Apps for Business Right For Your Company?

“How can I use cloud computing in my business?” is probably the number one IT question that I get asked. It can be a hard  question to answer because the cloud isn’t just one technology, and it all depends on what you need from your IT. Very often, small businesses owners simply want to store files in the cloud and share them with colleagues and clients, and I increasingly find myself suggesting to people that they should at least look at Google Apps for Business.

Google Apps for Business is the cloud equivalent of the Swiss Army knife.  It has a number of components:

Google Mail

Most people know about Google Mail, but many people aren’t aware of Google Apps for Business which works pretty much the same as the personal version of Google Mail, but you use your own domain (e.g. clearview.co.uk) instead of the Google domain of gmail.com.  You can also personalise the system with your company logo (see below).

Google Calendar

Google Apps provides a  calendar to help you organise your time. You can share your calendar with your colleagues and vice versa. In addition to scheduling meetings, Google’s “Tasks” component allows you to create a “To-Do” list which I keep on the right hand side of my screen. It’s no substitute for a CRM system, but it helps me to organise my activity for the day.

Even if all you got was email and calendar, surely Google Apps for Business has to be the cloud’s biggest bargain at £3.30 per user per month for businesses, and absolutely free for non-profit organisations. What’s more, if you have grown attached to using Microsoft Outlook as your email and calendar software, there’s no need to change. You can configure Google Apps to synchronise all of your email and calendar entries with your Outlook client.

But that’s not all! You can also use Google Apps for Business to store documents online and synchronise them with a folder on your laptop / desktop PC using Google Drive.

Google Drive

Google Drive allows you to store and share your files online and integrates neatly with Google Mail. There are two ways to access your Google Drive Files. Firstly, you can download and install an install programme from your Google account which creates a synchronisation folder on your laptop or PC. You can then drag and drop files and folders into your Google Drive folder and synchronise them with your Google Account.

  

Secondly, you can upload files to Google Drive using a web browser. This is a simple “point and click” operation that allows you to upload files to your Google account from any internet connected device.

Once a file or folder has been uploaded to your Google Drive account, you can share it using a right mouse click and clicking on the “Share” menu option. Files and folders can be shared with colleagues in your own organisation as well as with clients and business partners. You get the option to send an email to the person that you have shared the file or folder with.

Word Processing and Spreadsheets for Free!

In addition to email, calendar, file sharing and collaboration, Google Apps also provides you with a basic word processor, spreadsheet and drawing application at no extra cost. They aren’t as sophisticated as the Microsoft applications, or even Open Source suites such as LibreOffice, but if you only need basic word processing and spreadsheet functions, they do the job. I tend to compose everything in my favourite Office suite and just use Google for storage and collaboration. 

Great Value Cloud Computing For Small Businesses

Having moved over from Microsoft Exchange about 18 months ago, I'm a big advocate of Google Apps for Business. It's great value for money and there are ways that you can overlay automatic encryption to ensure data privacy. If you are a start-up and looking for a low cost way to store / back up data files in the cloud, as well as share files with your colleagues and clients, it's hard to fault.