Founded in 1930 and headquartered in Jordan, Arab Bank is one of the oldest banks in the Middle East. Operating out of 28 countries, we’ve earned our customers’ trust with a prudent approach to operations and respect for the cultures and customs in the region. 

With a few exceptions where cloud providers have hosted their datacenter in a Middle Eastern or North African country, the banking sector, in general, in the region has been slow to adopt cloud technology for a number of reasons, including concern about data security, maturity and security controls of cloud services (PaaS and SaaS), and regulations in place. But on the other hand, we saw the opportunity to accelerate our development and testing using the cloud, as well as to partner with the fintech community and digital service providers to integrate their solution in the banking ecosystem. We needed more flexibility to connect with the outside world, and a more open architecture to help us drive our internal innovation at a faster rate with the help of the fintech industry. By collaborating with Google Cloud, we reached those goals and accelerated app development and testing through products like Apigee and Anthos. We’re now offering innovative apps and services to our customers and employees that leverage new technological capabilities to give more agility and flexibility, and to optimize our workloads.

Embracing the cloud in a regulated industry 

To get started with the cloud, we needed to create internal awareness about cloud technology, the API layer, containers and their benefits amongst our leaders and staff. Google helped us educate and get buy-in from key functions by organizing open technology demonstration sessions and discussion panels. When considering potential cloud providers we had four decision criteria: maturity of security controls, ease of use, cost, and scalability / agility for new deployments and continuous innovation. This last factor was critical, and we were impressed by Google Cloud’s innovation roadmap, both via direct conversations and at Google’s Next conference, where we met a lot of people passionate about technology, innovation and building something new.  

Going back to our journey, given the above-mentioned regional limitations, we started to develop a hybrid cloud approach. This helped us continue to operate on-premises for a number of services in production, particularly those that have personally identifiable information (PII) or other sensitive data attached, and to leverage the cloud for development, testing and production workloads that don’t contain customer data. 

In the short term, we didn’t anticipate that our many jurisdictions would allow data to be transported to other countries. But cloud tools will allow us to tokenize or anonymize customer data while maintaining customer data on-premises. This applies to many digital journeys such as customer onboarding, credit facility online applications, or marketplace navigation. In the coming years, we predict our API integration with partners will accelerate and enrich the overall digital value proposition of our business segments, namely consumer banking, small and medium-size businesses and large corporate and institutional clients. 

Building connections and cornerstones in the cloud

The first move in our digital transformation was to implement Apigee, Google Cloud’s API management platform, to connect to the world’s digital banking ecosystem. Apigee provides the security, sharing, mediation policies, and developer portal capabilities for us to successfully meet Open Banking standards while focusing on innovation.  

On the back of the Apigee implementation, we created an accelerator program to incubate Fintech ideas that can, in turn, integrate into our digital platforms and be offered to our customers. We also developed various banking APIs, all designed and documented in accordance with PSD2 and Open Banking regulations, and made them available to our partners. These APIs exposed on our API development portal offer the needed code structure for fintech companies to design creative solutions around them.

Next, we adopted Anthos, Google Cloud’s managed application platform. Anthos has become a cornerstone of our operations because it works across hybrid cloud, offering integration of microservice containers and fueling collaborative opportunities with external parties. Our current Anthos infrastructure includes several hundreds of  microservices now running on containers in Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and on-premises. We now use the cloud for collaboration, development and testing, but not for production, which is done on-premises. 

Along the way, Google Cloud’s Professional Services Organization (PSO) helped us through the entire cloud setup process, and with the adoption of Anthos. We originally built on the cloud tools through an iterative process, learning from our successes and errors along the way. Now that we have a better sense of how Anthos operates, we’re building a fresh infrastructure atop a sound, stable, and resilient foundation that will let us scale easily as we work to transform Arab Bank into a digital-first enterprise, that is our ambition. 

Currently products running on Anthos include customer acquisition and onboarding via mobile apps, and our Arabi-Pay app, which allows customers to instantly pay each other via WhatsApp or other messaging platforms. Leveraging Anthos, our instant loan service for Arab Bank salaried employees can grant and disburse loans up to $7,000 in less than seven minutes.

In addition, we’ve built a number of digital journeys for our Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) customers, such as our SME client digital onboarding process and paperless SME lending platform.

While some may think that digital adoption in this part of the world can be slow, as customer contact remains anchored in our customs, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital banking services and electronic payments, inspiring more confidence to buy and pay online. Thanks to our rich and user-friendly banking app that relies on Apigee and Anthos for critical customer journeys, over 90% of new-to-bank customers are using our mobile apps. Within the next 18 months, we predict that number will be closer to 100%. 

Of course, with higher customer adoption comes the challenge of potential service interruptions. A single moment of downtime can be highly visible to many digital customers. But Google Cloud’s Anthos and Apigee give us the flexibility to resume processes at a fast rate, so any interruptions are almost invisible to our customers. In fact, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, though our branches could be open only for limited hours each day, our consumer clients in particular were able to take advantage of our digital services in a very self-sufficient manner. Being well positioned with Google Cloud, we could also keep our internal teams and external partners connected and productive. Without Google Cloud, continuing the digital transformation of the bank at the pace we wanted would have been a big challenge. 

Collaborating across borders and time zones

With Google Cloud, our ability to collaborate and partner has transformed significantly. We operate 24/7 now because our developers are scattered across multiple geographies and different time zones. Because testing and deployment can run around the clock, including on weekends, we currently deploy a new digital journey in a few weeks, faster than ever before. This has given our organization a spirited mindset that prioritizes innovation, and raised the bar in terms of our operating model.  

Another consideration about Google Cloud tools is the elimination of inefficient processes typically seen in a software development lifecycle. We now build in a completely agile manner, from design squads until deployment in production. Compared to where we were two years ago, when we had an annual maximum of two systems releases in production, we now have close to monthly releases of our digital packages. In addition, we also  supplement those monthly releases with additional ad-hoc releases and fixes in between. As a result, we have removed internal silos and improved tremendously the collaboration between the product and sales teams, operations, IT Dev Factory and Infrastructure, as well as our supporting functions.

Through the agile process facilitated by APIs, we introduced Design Thinking workshops involving external customers and prospects early on to understand their true pain points better and emotions during the existing journeys and how to make new digital journeys frictionless. As a result, the relevance of our products for various customer personas has improved tremendously. 

Transcending banking 

With Google Cloud, we can offer our customers so much more than just banking. We’ve become more digitally relevant to their lives. For example, we recently launched a mortgage app that helps customers all the way from home selection through mortgage negotiations and closing, and even to getting the home decorated. It’s an end-to-end journey in which API integration with key regional players was a cornerstone to our success. 

For other digital products, we have an extensive roadmap of lifestyle-based solutions relevant to each segment and age group. We’ve only scratched the surface of the services we can provide, and we see the cloud as the future for everything we want to do.

Read more about Google Cloud’s Open Banking solution to learn how you can simplify and accelerate the process of delivering open banking as required by PSD2. You can also view our video on Open Banking, powered by Apigee API Management.

Vinayak Bhavnani, Co-Founder and CTO of India-based bus transport technology company Chalo, shares how Google Maps Platform is used to improve visibility for commuters and bus operators across India by visualizing geospatial data.

Effective public transport networks contribute to the local economy and help make cities safe, pleasant, and sustainable. In India, buses make up around 90% of the public transport offering, but when you talk to the people who ride them every day, you find that there’s a lot of room for improvement. Heavy traffic means there are rarely any fixed schedules and it’s impossible to know exactly when your bus is coming. We’ve found that people tend to wait at a bus stop for up to 30 minutes a day, which creates a lot of frustration and wasted time.

When we founded Chalo, our aim was to make the daily city commute a more positive experience. Reliability is synonymous with visibility: when you know exactly when the bus is coming, you can plan your day better. If you’re in your office, for example, and see the next bus is in 10 minutes, you can be at the stop at the exact time it arrives, instead of waiting around. To enable this, we base our solutions on richly-detailed geospatial data provided by Google Maps Platform.

Eliminating wait times and increasing revenue with geospatial data

In India, bus passengers tend to have fewer resources. The Chalo App, which can be downloaded for free, allows them to see exactly where their bus is on its route and when it will arrive at their nearest stop. They also tend to be late adopters of mobile technology, meaning we had to create an interface that was user-friendly, reassuring and adapted to all age groups and backgrounds. One of the main reasons we opted for Google Maps Platform is that it’s very present in India and other emerging markets and is familiar to our users, which inspires trust. At the same time, we like the fact that Google Maps Platform provides rich geospatial data while being simple to implement and work with. We use the Geocoding API, Reverse Geocoding, and the Directions API to enable location search and provide directions.

We also worked with MediaAgility to identify the Google Maps Platform products most suited to our needs and the best practices to be followed. This helped to ensure that our business objectives could be met efficiently.

The Chalo App also enables digital ticketing, alongside the Chalo Card, a payment card for those who don’t own a smartphone. India, like the rest of the world, is gradually moving away from cash payments, but the public transport system is proving slow to catch up, meaning people still must have cash in hand when they board the bus. Digital ticketing not only makes commuting more convenient, it also helps protect passengers, drivers and conductors during the COVID-19 health crisis by limiting physical contact. 

Chalo also offers solutions aimed at bus operators that help them improve their services and their bottom line. In major Indian cities, buses are run by a combination of public and private agencies and small private individual bus operators, with the majority of the latter only operating one or two buses. The market is very fragmented and there’s not much incentive for bus operators to invest in infrastructure or customer experience – especially when they have little to no visibility on where their fleet is at a given time, how many kilometers it travels in a day, or how much money it takes. 

The Chalo dashboard provides operators with a map-based real-time overview of bus locations, alongside scheduling features and route, ticketing, and passenger statistics. Geospatial intelligence and insight into passenger demand enable operators to explore new avenues of revenue and adapt routes and services to passenger needs. Operators who’ve partnered with Chalo report an average improvement of 10% to 30% of their bus fleet operations.

Chalo is currently powering about 100 million rides a month on 15,000 buses in 37 cities. We’d like to see the number of rides increase tenfold over the next few years. To do that, we’re looking to broaden our offer and expand to other parts of the country and across international borders. A pilot is underway in Bangkok, and we’re considering expansion into South-East Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Having access to detailed geospatial data anywhere in the world via Google Maps Platform, without having to make any major investments or changes to our technology stack, will make this considerably easier. 

At the same time, we’re exploring artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve the accuracy of our scheduling features and we’re introducing video-based solutions for people-counting on buses. Our aim is to continually improve our offering and optimize our services. We’re looking forward to working closely with Google to make that happen.  

For more information on Google Maps Platform, visit our website.

When your business is rapidly adding new employees, expanding to new countries, and always focused on staying ahead of the competition, you have to take a hard look at the tools that are slowing you down—and swap them out for better ones that can keep pace with the company.

We’re expanding YoungCapital in Germany, which means more offices, more people, and more technology to make the business run smoothly. 

As we scale, Google Cloud tools like Chromebooks and G Suite help us grow our business efficiently. They free us up from sluggish, time-intensive technology that’s hard to maintain and repair, and give us the freedom to work together in faster, smarter ways.

Free from hours of device setup. Some months, there are as many as 40 new employees starting at YoungCapital—and as we continue to expand that number will continue to rise, especially now that we’ve opened three new offices in Germany.

With our old Windows desktops, setting up new computers could take up to an hour per employee (which can add up to about 40 hours a month for IT). Today, using Chrome Enterprise tools, it takes about five minutes to get an Acer Spin or Pixelbook ready to hand off to a new hire—saving us more than three months per year of device setup time.

Free from VPNs. Our previous Windows machines required a complicated virtual private network (VPN) for accessing corporate files outside of the office.

Using a VPN was complicated for our employees because the software wasn’t intuitive; if an employee had trouble signing into the VPN while at home or traveling, they could not log in and work as quickly as they needed to. With Chromebooks, all you need is an online connection to sign into G Suite to access files and work from anywhere. 

From our perspective, Chromebooks are resistant to threats like ransomware and phishing attacks, giving us confidence that our data can stay secure.

With Chrome Enterprise Upgrade, our IT admins can strengthen security even further: for example, by enabling advanced security features that help block vulnerabilities, locking down lost or stolen devices right away, and setting device security policies in the cloud so devices everywhere are safer. 

Free from infrastructure. We used to have to invest in servers, and then add more time and money to keep them running. Now we don’t have to run the business on infrastructure or hire people to maintain it—we can just use Google’s cloud.

NextNovate is helping us make the most of Google Cloud Platform, like integrating some of our proprietary applications with G Suite and building our own add-ons. For example, we created a button for Gmail that connects to our job candidate database; when candidates email us, we can click on the button and see their profiles and work experience. 

Free from multiple passwords and logins. Chrome Browser and G Suite with single sign-provider SAML are the portal to all the productivity apps our employees need. Once people log in to G Suite, they don’t have to remember a bunch of other user names and passwords. The IT team loves it too, because we don’t have to spend hours zeroing out passwords and creating new ones.

Free to manage cross-country devices easily in the cloud. Our four-person IT support team, which keeps our systems humming, hasn’t grown, even though we’ve doubled the number of employees.

When we were on Windows devices, we fielded roughly 1,800 IT support requests every month. Now we get about 1,300 requests a month, from a much bigger employee base. This translates to nearly 30% fewer requests for our lean support team, which reduces their workload significantly even though we have roughly 20% more employees—all made possible with Chrome Enterprise. 

Being free of slow, high-maintenance technology doesn’t just make the IT department happy—people are actually changing how they work. They no longer send files to each other by email or struggle to keep track of versions; they store everything in Google Drive and work together in Google Docs on a single document at the same time.

And instead of traveling to other offices, connecting with each other in video conferences on Hangouts Meet has become a completely natural way to do business.

With Chromebooks and G Suite, we’re ready for anything: more new markets, more employees, and more-flexible ways to work together and shake up the staffing industry.

When Bigbasket was founded in December 2011, it guaranteed to deliver goods within a one-hour delivery slot of its customers’ choosing or it would refund them 10 percent of their orders. The company also introduced an express service, delivering groceries within 90 minutes of an order being placed.

Bigbasket needed a mapping platform that could help it meet its delivery times, and offer a familiar interface to customers. MediaAgility, a digital consulting company, recommended Google Maps Platform to Bigbasket.

When customers use the Bigbasket mobile app to place orders, they select their locations on a Google Map. The prices and availability of groceries varies according to location, so a customer’s location determines the cost of the order and what can be ordered.

Google Maps Platform Results

• Bigbasket handles more than one million orders per month, and delivers in more than two dozen cities in India
• Bigbasket now has more than four million customers
• Orders are delivered on time, increasing customer loyalty

It is also used to determine driver routes. Bigbasket used the Maps Javascript API to build a web-based app for the company’s backend that tracks all orders and delivery progress. Dispatchers use the Directions API to match drivers with orders and customers, and the Distance Matrix API to get estimate the time of arrival for deliveries. As dispatchers track the progress of deliveries on the map, they can tweak routes as necessary.

“We’ve built Bigbasket from the ground up using Google Maps Platform. It makes sure we have the right customer locations and deliver to them on time. We couldn’t have started Bigbasket without Google Maps. It helps us to be fast and efficient, and make sure our customers get what they’ve ordered quickly,” said Pramod Jajoo, Chief Technology Officer, Bigbasket

Editor’s note: Today’s post is by Roger Lim, IT Manager of Collaboration Infrastructure Development, and Jim Arcure, Director of Infrastructure Development, both with Colgate-Palmolive, the multinational consumer products company. Colgate-Palmolive is in the midst of a multiyear project to create a collaborative, flexible work culture, leveraging Google Workspace and Chrome Enterprise.

Colgate-Palmolive Company is a caring, innovative growth company reimagining a healthier future for all people, their pets, and our planet. Focused on Oral Care, Personal Care, Home Care, and Pet Nutrition, and reaching more than 200 countries and territories, Colgate teams are developing and selling product offerings essential to society through brands such as Colgate, Palmolive, elmex, meridol, Tom’s of Maine, hello, Sorriso, Speed Stick, Softsoap, Irish Spring, Protex, Sanex, Filorga, eltaMD, PCA Skin, Ajax, Axion, Fabuloso, Soupline and Suavitel, as well as Hill’s Science Diet and Hill’s Prescription Diet.  

Colgate-Palmolive has been accelerating growth and delivering meaningful innovation and attracting new and diverse talent in areas such as ecommerce, innovation and digital. That speed and agility comes in large part from the Chrome Enterprise tools that allow the business to move faster and stay competitive.

Changing out software and hardware for 30,000 employees in 70+ countries is a massive project. Early on, we chose Chrome Enterprise as our partner. We had to move away from our dependency on legacy platforms, software, and devices if our business was going to thrive. We knew cloud-based tools like Chrome and Google Workspace would do what on-premises solutions can’t—ease the IT workload while keeping employees happy and productive.

Why we’re escaping legacy apps and embracing the cloud

We don’t want Colgate-Palmolive’s size and geographical breadth to get in the way of people working together and maintaining its strength in global teamwork. That’s why we’re replacing bulky, hard-to-maintain, on-premises applications and software with cloud versions that everyone can securely access in a web browser.

As an IT team, we thought about how much work time we spent installing, updating, and troubleshooting software (up to 30 percent of work hours during big upgrades!). As we were looking at ways to work together better, we had our eyes on the cloud revolution—and, specifically, Chrome Enterprise and Google Workspace.

First step, switch to a new browser

Back in 2016, the IT team was working to move everyone to Google Workspace and away from legacy productivity applications. Once you start Google Workspace adoption, it’s time to take a closer look at browser options.

We chose Chrome Browser for several reasons. It updates automatically, so we could cross lengthy upgrade tasks off our list. An even bigger benefit is that Chrome Browser’s management tools, data protection, and malware detection are all built in. We anticipate a lot of synergy here by leveraging these features and having our users go all Chrome.

Chrome Browser also gave us tools to manage and grant access to apps across our multi-platform device fleet. We call Chrome Browser Cloud Management our “golden nugget” because every browser gets enrolled automatically in browser management.

It’s now much easier to push out new extensions and apps (and allowlist or blocklist them) compared to the time-consuming process of using our existing desktop policy management settings. The ability to easily manage extensions is a huge benefit since it enabled IT to provide new and safe functionality to our end users.

Next, share new ways of working together 

Our IT team wants workers to see the benefits of Google Workspace and Chrome Browser on their own, but sometimes we have to guide them toward the finish line. At the beginning of the project, we developed “Going Google” tools to notify users to consider Google Workspace when opening legacy applications that are no longer needed.

As Chrome Enterprise and Google Workplace became our primary productivity tools, it was also important to ensure our users did not fall back on old habits. Our “Going Google” tools gave our IT organization the ability to not only notify, but turn off specific legacy apps per user. Though IT could easily restore access to these legacy apps on a temporary basis, we have seen a significant dropoff in these types of requests over the past few months. Our goal is to give Colgate people a gentle and consistent reminder that we will be a Google Workspace-only company. By taking these active and decisive steps, we ensure that our users and teams are migrating to Google Workspace today.

To that end, we’ve provided lots of support. We use over 1,000 Colgate “Google Guides” around the world who run on-site classes and webinars on Google Workspace, and are available for one-on-one help, as well as roughly 700 “Google Gurus” who are savvy early-adopters and can lend a hand to colleagues with questions about Google Workspace. Our training classes and webinars are playing to packed houses, and we’re scheduling sessions that focus on specific skills, like a class about using Google Sheets attended by 250 people via Google Meet.

Finally, start rolling out new devices

If we can get everyone at Colgate-Palmolive working in Google Workspace and Chrome Browser, then offering Chromebooks is another natural fit: Chromebooks and the Chrome OS are built for the cloud world we want to work in. We’re pilot testing about 200 Chromebooks for employees, mostly in our customer development department. The Chromebooks are in high demand in challenging locations because they’re easier to deploy for new hires. When employees eventually get back to their offices, we are eager to expand Grab-and-Go racks for people that need a temporary loaner. These Grab-and-Go racks in our New York City and Piscataway, N.J. offices will provide another way for people to test drive Chromebooks. 

Two hundred-odd years after Colgate-Palmolive started doing business, we’re excited about the modern focus of our workplace tools. The Google tools that allow us to collaborate also allow the company to succeed well into our third century.