Blog# 1: Replacing MS Office with Google Drive

Good morning Mr. Rolando (President of Evonik Cyro),

Per our previous conversation, I wanted to follow-up on our discussion pertaining to implementing Google Drive in Q3 of 2013. With our entire company currently using MS Office 2003 and operating in multiple countries, we have to decide how best to circumvent time zone differences and various work schedules. As a global company employing 6,000 and more employees, it might seem obvious to continue on our status quo path with technology. However, I believe that Evonik Cyro as a whole can benefit from adopting Google Drive in lieu of MS Office.

Item #1: Pricing

By rounding to $100/MS Office, we would be looking at approximately $600,000 to purchase the next MS Office once the review board approves the proposal. As to our current computers in the offices, these are up-to-date and would not need any upgrades to be able to run the newer versions. Also, the downtime expected for retraining would be minimal, yet needed. As we both know, changes have been made to the format and layout of the various Office tools, so a little 1-2 hour refresher course would be needed. On average, the salaries of employees is approximately $25/hour and with 1-2 hours needed, the training expenses would equate to ~$150,000-$300,000. One recommendation I would make to management would be to create a "buddy system" where half the employees go to training and the other half cover their own workload and the co-workers in training. This way, no productivity loss will incur during this initiative.

On the other hand, forgoing another MS Office package and instead installing Google Drive on everyone's work computer, would cost nothing (minus costs for additional data storage plans) for installation. However, I would be remiss if not to mention that there will need to be classes to ensure that everyone is familiar to navigate this new technology. Based on my limited experience with Google Drive and the understanding that a majority of our workforce is of an older generation with limited technical know-how, I would request that 4-5 hours of training is needed. As with our calculations earlier, if the average salary of employees is $25/hour, then we are looking at $600,000-$750,000 for training. Again, as with my suggestion for the MS Office option, I would state to split departments up to ensure that all work is being covered and no department has to close during this time. If this method is followed, we can be confident that customers will not notice the limited staff support.

Item #2: Ease of Use

Everyone in the office (who works on a computer), is familiar with MS Office. Even when a new version has been introduced, it is safe to say that a majority of our employees have home versions and are quite comfortable. Yet, Google Drive can be both familiar and foreign to those not readily knowledgeable of "drop box" and digital storage applications. With Google Drive, I personally played around and tried the various functions. Having no prior experience with Drive, I was a little surprised to see how user friendly this was. Without going into specifics of all the functionality, I will say that searching with minimal key words or just being able to view an image of every document can greatly increase the efficiency of the staff. For example, let's say that in Customer Service, an employee needs to send a document to a colleague with revisions needed or an update status. First, the employee has to locate the document on the shared drive. Once that employee finds the document, they then have to open up an e-mail, type a message to a colleague explaining what needs to be done, attach the document, send, and wait for a reply. In total, we would be looking at a task taking anywhere from 5-10 minutes.

Now, with having the document already uploaded on Google Drive, that same employee can "share" the document with the colleague with a note and send it right through the application. With a living document working in real time, the changes can occur instantaneously and even if there is a delay, one did not have to use an e-mail program or waste time searching for the document. I would say that in a given day, an employee has to perform just this task between 10-20 times, so that would be a total of 50-200 minutes, minus the 2 minutes it would now take through Google Drive.

"Grid" View of Google Drive Documents

Item #3: Benefits

The final point I would like to discuss would be the benefits our company can expect to see by utilizing Google Drive. One of the biggest concerns of our employees is being able to interact with our colleagues on the road and overseas. With different time zones and hectic work schedules, it appears we are reactive when working on bigger projects or just trying to resolve customer concerns. A way to alleviate these issues is with Google Drive. By just being able to access documents via smart phones (while on the road) or having a "living document" available for edit from colleagues can ensure that changes are being added or revisions being made while the other side of the world is away from the office. In fact, with Google Drive, employees can access the documents right on their personal computers/smart phones/tablets without having to worry about being in the office. Plus, with the ability to have chats and changes in real time, this will ensure that everyone is kept in the loop and can pull up the information when needed. 

I already mentioned the time saving this would incur a little earlier, but think on a larger scale what this would mean for productivity. If Google Drive increased the efficiency of each employee by 5 minutes, then the company would have a pool of 30,000 extra minutes for the entire personnel staff (again, a little far fetched, but effective for this discussion). This extra time can be used to gain more customers, optimize projects, or let customer service enter 2-3 more orders per day per person. As orders range from $100-$50,000, think of the revenue our company can bring in.

I hope our conversation has provided you with some food for thought and I would like to revisit this discussion as we get closer to our next meeting.

Thank you,

Jonathan Polan