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Productivity Suite Assessment Helps Small Businesses Choose or Improve their Cloud

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May 25, 2021 – Westborough, MA – Cumulus Global is pleased to announce the launch of its new Productivity Suite Assessment, a consulting service that helps small and midsize businesses (SMBs) determine which productivity suite best meets their needs and how to fully utilize the suite to improve productivity and support business goals. Whether considering, or currently using Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, the productivity suite is the foundation for IT services. The right match is about more than the marketing hype and basic features. The right match integrates with how you work and other systems to support business goals, needs, priorities, and budget.

“For businesses not yet in the cloud, we guide them to the best fit and solution,” stated Allen Falcon, CEO of Cumulus Global. “For those only using some of the Microsoft and Google suite services, we help them fully adopt, utilize, and leverage capabilities.”

The Productivity Suite Assessment gives businesses:

  • A comprehensive review of current technology platforms and how well they are serving the business
  • Expert analysis of challenges, gaps, and opportunities to improve productivity and efficiencies
  • Recommendations: “what” technologies are a best fit and “how” to leverage them for greatest impact and value
  • Savings on implementation of recommendations.

“We help businesses decide if Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace best aligns with their operations and technologies. More impactfully, we identify under-utilized capabilities and guide adoption,” noted Falcon. “Using these recommendations, businesses improve processes, empower employees and teams, reduce costs, and enable growth.”

The Productivity Suite Assessment follows Cumulus Global’s best-practice methods.  The three phase project includes: detailed discovery, thorough analysis; and recommendations with guidance on implementation and adoption.  Cumulus Global partners with both Microsoft and Google, providing objective analysis and recommendations. Founded in 2006, Cumulus Global has 15 years experience delivery cloud solutions to small and midsize businesses.

Fast Fact Friday: AWS vs Azure vs Google

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fastfacts2According to the RightScale 2016 State of the Cloud report …

57% of respondents are running applications on Amazon Web Services. 

30% are running apps in Microsoft Azure Iaas and PaaS.

13% are running Apps on Google Cloud Platform and App Engine

 

Are you moving to the cloud? Is your roadmap in line with your business goals? Contact us for a no-obligation Cloud Advisor session.

G Suite: Advancing Beyond Google Apps

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G SuiteFor the third time in three years, Google has rebranded its business solutions. As we scramble to update our websites and marketing materials, we can reflect on the change and what it means for our customers and those considering Google Cloud and G Suite solutions.

More than a Reflection of Rapid Change

On the surface, the rebranding of Google for Work as Google Cloud and the renaming of Google Apps for Work to G Suite reflect the rapidly changing cloud computing market. Looking deeper, however, the change reflects some fundamental shifts. G Suite is not just a “for work” platform. Over the past two years, Google has consolidated education, nonprofit, and government environments onto a single platform with their business customers. A single G Suite infrastructure now meets the rigorous security and operational requirements of each market.

The change also reflects a shift from infrastructure and apps to a focus on improving how we work and innovate to build stronger businesses and organizations. The emphasis is no longer on the technical features and functions, but how your organization can work better for better results. This focus will extend beyond the core G Suite applications to include third party applications that integrate with the G Suite and Google Cloud platforms.

New Name; Same Services? Not Really!

Within the marketing flurry is the message that Google Cloud and G Suite are new names for the same great services. This may be the case for now, but looking forward, you can already see two significant trends.

AI Integration: In the G Suite Announcement, Google mentioned intelligent applications and provided a link to a second post titled: G Suite: Intelligent Tools for Teams. Take note: Google intends to embed Artificial Intelligence into the G Suite apps and tools in order to provide a more intuitive, productive, customized experience.

A New Baseline: Google Apps for Work is now G Suite Basic; Google Apps Unlimited is now G Suite Business. This change is as subtle as it is powerful. Where GAU was positioned as an upgrade to the GAFW service, G Suite Business is clearly positioned as the default option, with G Suite Basic positioned as a lower-cost, less functional alternative.

We can predict that we will see more features and capabilities appear in G Suite Business than we do in G Suite Basic (this differentiation is already visible with additional reporting and APIs). This differentiation will lead to a more robust ecosystem with G Suite Business.  Third party applications that integrate with G Suite, with access to a richer interface, will offer more capabilities when running with G Suite Business.  In short, G Suite Business will offer the greater value to most small and midsize organizations.

Looking Forward

Expect to see more announcements about intelligent features being added to G Suite applications. Expect more opportunities to integrate business processes and applications with G Suite — from CRM and customer service to custom line of business applications and systems. Expect G Suite Business to provide greater value as it will further enable application, system, and data integration. Expect new possibilities and opportunities.

Might G Suite Business be right for you? Contact us for a free, no-obligation Cloud Advisor Session.

 

Google Cloud and G Suite

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G SuiteNew Names, Same Great Solutions

At this point, every Google For Work customer has likely received an email from Google with the big announcement:

Google for Work is now Google Cloud

Google Apps is now G Suite

Why the change?

Google’s has greatly expanded the range of cloud-based business services over the past few years, and the ways in which businesses are using Google’s cloud portfolio continues to change and evolve. Google Cloud better reflects how all of Google’s business cloud services are part of a single, integrated ecosystem. Changing Google Apps to G Suite, better represents the range of services that lets you communicate, store, collaborate, and manage your business. G Suite has grown beyond “Gmail and tools for business”.

What does it mean?

Your Google Cloud services, including G Suite, do not change. You will continue to use the same email, file, and collaboration services you know and love. You still have the features, security, accessibility, and ease-of-use you expect.

We will spend the next several days updating our website and marketing materials and remembering to use the new names.

What does the future hold?

Looking forward, we encourage you to explore more ways to take advantage of G Suite‘s capabilities and to watch for new applications, features, and functions. Google’s commitment to expanding the platform and ecosystem is greater than ever. If you want to explore new use cases or to further your digital transformation, please contact us for a free Cloud Advisor consulting session.

 

 

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Your Transition to Google Workspace

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Map your transition to Google Workspace: Understand the changes in features/functions and the cost impact for your business.

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