One of the key trends that emerged from the lockdown brought about by the COVID-19 outbreak was the significant rise in people seeking entertainment online.

According to data released by Carat India, smartphone usage increased by 1.5 hours a week and social media consumption nearly doubled to 280 minutes a day. Of India’s 670 million internet users, a significant percentage live in rural areas, which saw a surge in demand for local language content.

As India’s premier social media platform, ShareChat saw significant engagement from its 60 million monthly active users (MAU) during the lockdown. The platform now has surpassed 120 million MAU post the government banning 59 Chinese apps in the last week of June.

ShareChat was founded by Ankush Sachdeva (co-founder and Chief Executive Officer), Farid Ahsan (co-founder and Chief Operating Officer), and Bhanu Pratap Singh (co-founder and Chief Technical Officer), in 2015.

In a recent conversation with YourStory, Bhanu spoke about content consumption during COVID-19, how they are reaching out to the country’s vernacular audience and their recent transition to Google Cloud.

Read the Full Story on YourStory

“Any device, anytime, anywhere.” A cohort of CIOs within Airbus believed that the cloud, combined with new ways of working, could provide the foundation for this vision. Google Workspace and Google Cloud have played a pivotal role in helping Airbus realize this new path, transforming security, data management, and collaboration along the way.

Adopting a secure-by-design approach

In adopting Google Workspace and Google Cloud Airbus needed to ensure a robust, zero-trust security model that works across the entire organization, even when employees are working outside the office. Google Workspace provides a single login that enables secure access to data, based on device and user information, as well as contextual inputs that inform the security risk of each login and user action. Airbus admins also use Google Workspace to define trust rules that govern what information and files can be shared within and outside the organization, making it easy for employees to comply with best practices from anywhere.

Encryption also plays a central role in keeping information secure and private. By default, Google Workspace uses the latest cryptographic standards to encrypt all data at rest and in transit. Google Workspace also offers client-side encryption, which Airbus uses for their most sensitive projects, giving them authoritative control over their data as the sole owner of their encryption keys.

And to ensure the organization is protected against hackers, Airbus has implemented sharding as a standard practice, thereby splitting data across multiple servers and data centers. Because the company works with incredibly sensitive information—including government and military information—the ability to locate data all within European data centers continues to be a necessity.

Powerful data management

Managing an enormous volume and variety of data, Airbus needs to ensure complete compliance with internal policies, as well as with external standards, like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Given this context, Airbus requires a solution that has strong built-in governance controls. Airbus also leverages the Drive labels feature, along with manual classification, to ensure that every file added to Google Drive is tagged and labeled correctly. In turn, these labels define the loss-prevention policies assigned to each file.

Staying connected during the pandemic

Before the pandemic, nearly every employee spent their workdays at an Airbus facility. When remote work became mandatory, the company made the pivot to Google Chat and Google Meet as an essential part of supporting real-time and asynchronous collaboration. Gmail also played a significant role in secure, anywhere-anytime communication, with its built-in anti-spam and anti-malware protections. Customizable filters let administrators protect against suspicious attachments, untrustworthy links, and countless other forms of malicious content. While Gmail blocks more than 99.9% of spam and phishing messages from ever reaching users’ inboxes, more advanced security measures like sandboxing can be put in place for specific use cases.

Protecting more than just data

Google Cloud’s sustainability efforts are as equally important to Airbus as data security. Google Cloud has been working to keep its climate footprint and those who use its services as low as possible, with all of Google currently carbon neutral and with a goal to run on carbon-free energy 24/7 at all of our data centers by 2030. And with our smarter, more efficient data centers, we’re already on that path with more than six times the computing power for the same amount of electrical power we used 5 years ago.

Building the future of work

By combining Google Workspace with Google Cloud, Airbus has been able to live up to its vision of “any device, anytime, anywhere.” The new model is a core foundation for its evolving future of work. Not only has Airbus adopted a zero-trust model across the organization, it’s also transformed how data is secured, managed, and accessed by employees working across a broad range of locations. The new flexible approach has also led to changes in how collaboration happens. Google is deeply gratified to have supported Airbus as they implement these changes and we continue to be proud that we’re running the cleanest cloud in the industry.

Want to learn more about how Google Workspace helps businesses like yours do more while keeping your data secure? Read this whitepaper to find out about our zero-trust model and other ways we protect organizations.

As ecommerce for home goods exploded in popularity during COVID, furniture and DIY retailers looked to find new ways to grow online transaction sizes to in-store levels. Shopping for furniture and home improvement projects has always been challenging online. Furniture, kitchen cabinets, fixtures, and appliances become a part of daily life, are challenging to return, and have a low purchase frequency. Once a shopper makes a decision, they tend to live with it for many years. These are visual, tactile, decisions that require measurements, style choices, budgeting, an understanding of available products, and an involved consideration processes. During the pandemic, retailers turned to 3D to enhance these virtual shopping experiences. 

Inspiration and visualization cultivate confidence

Our 3D Room Commerce company, Marxent offers 3D visualization and configuration solutions that help retailers sell complex, configurable products online through consumer-facing 3D design and visualization apps. The Marxent 3D Room Planner with HD Renders helps shoppers to visualize how furniture or kitchen cabinet configurations will look in the specific floorplan of their home. Founded in 2011, Marxent envisions a world where buying a dining table or remodeling an entire kitchen is as easy as buying a car from Carvana or ordering dinner through  Bite Squad. Our 3D apps create a streamlined inspiration to transaction to advocacy model that cultivates shopper confidence and allows retailers to sell the whole room, not just individual items. 

Using Google Cloud as a foundation, we help some of the largest retail and home goods companies in the world provide exceptional customer journeys. We trust Google Cloud because our clients trust us to make it faster and easier for shoppers to buy semi-custom, configurable projects.

Embracing the power of 3D to super-charge ecommerce 

It’s inarguable: e-commerce is on the rise. More people than ever before are shopping online for furniture, kitchen cabinets, decking, and other large-scale configurable products. 

Customers who design with a retailer, usually buy from them. When shoppers visit stores and showrooms, they find inspiration in merchandised scenes that illustrate how products like sofas, chairs, rugs and lamps work together to accomplish a look. Skilled sales people make suggestions and offer advice on how to put pieces together. They may even work up a quick floor plan to show how multiple items work together in a room. In store, the inspiration phase is intimately tied to consideration and, ultimately, to driving transactions.

By contrast, online shoppers typically start home projects by seeking inspiration and ideas from Pinterest, Instagram and unbranded online image searches. Once they have formed their style preferences, shoppers keep searching to compare products across multiple retailers, plan their project, and put together a final budget. 

To own the whole project sale, retailers need to own the entire inspiration to transaction to advocacy journey. With both online and in-store applications, Retailers leverage Marxent’s 3D Room Planner app to build shopper confidence, capture the whole room sale and win the customer over.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=_svOdVvX5LA%3Fenablejsapi%3D1%26

PRE-RENDERED MID-POLY 3D SCENE

POST-RENDERED MID-POLY 3D SCENE – This is a slightly different angle of the same room that has been rendered into a “Raw Render” (rendered in under 2 minutes).

Through Marxent’s 3D Room Commerce solution, users experience a cyclical inspiration to transaction to advocacy journey. It starts with shoppers viewing inspirational images and media online. Using Marxent’s applications, they can design directly from inspirational images to create a custom, configured space without any product catalog knowledge. Shoppers can visualize the products they love together and in the context of their own floor plan instead of navigating product pages and wondering if items will work together. 

Then, they can add the whole room to a shopping cart with a single click. While this virtual experience does lead to a transaction, it also allows users to save, collaborate on, and share the spaces they’ve created. They become advocates by sharing their projects on social media, starting the inspirational content cycle again. 

Putting an end to manual operations

To deliver renders at scale, Marxent needed to update their cloud render solution. Initially, our 3D Art team operated a manual on-premise render fleet. However, this required many hours of manual setup, configuration, and operation. We also had to manage expensive graphics servers—bare metal, CPUs, GPUs, RAM, HDD, and more. The only solution was to automate the 3D rendering process and empower end-users to rapidly create their own 3D room renders. 

When we were evaluating new solutions, we saw distinct advantages in the Google Cloud Platform that would help them safely and securely scale their business, while strengthening their partnerships with end customers. For example, in moving to Google Cloud, we could automate and scale our rendering process without having to manage fleets of physical servers. We also viewed the platform as an asset due to Google’s secure-by-design infrastructure, agility, data analytics capabilities, and potential for joining the Marketplace.

Creating magical customer experiences that inspire purchase

To provide our customers and shoppers with contextual experiences, Marxent’s applications use mid-poly 3D models that balance speed and realism. These models provide a latency-free, real-time design experience that can be rendered into scenes that are realistic enough to be perceived as photos on social media. 

The complex process of rendering these images requires a combination of efficiency, speed, analytics, and consistent performance that Google Cloud provides. When configured with powerful and speedy gaming GPUs, Marxent can provide fast rendering that meets customers and shopper demands. Here’s a look at our HD Renders application.

Before a user can request an HD Render, they must create a room in the Marxent 3D Room Planner. Once requested, Marxent pulls the saved project from the database and kicks off the process with Cloud Pub/Sub. The project loads into a gaming GPU, using the same platform code running when the user first creates the room in the application. It boots up the app in the cloud to load the room.

The code then scours the space and prepares it for rendering, adjusting texture formats, and adding in lighting. After going through the render engine, the project automatically uploads to Cloud Storage. Finally, the user receives a link to the final product. Throughout, Cloud Pub/Sub handles messages ensuring the right event processes are happening, such as rendering success or failure.

Using this process, it’s possible to create dozens of images out of a single scene, trading products in and out of a floor plan by leveraging a complete catalog of content geometries and covers, textures, and finishes.

Utilizing Google Cloud throughout the buying journey 

Today, Marxent’s applications power world-class retailers with AR, VR, and 3D commerce experiences. We use cutting-edge graphics hardware to create renderings in less than 2 minutes per screenshot, often much faster. We’re also saving money as we no longer have to manage expensive servers or purchase expensive hardware upfront. Our clients are happier because we have passed on the cost savings to them while now having limitless scaling capabilities to meet demand.

By partnering with Google Cloud, Marxent can confidently offer our customers secure applications built on infrastructure with advanced security tools that support compliance and data confidentiality. Backed by a globally consistent platform, we can also help brands build reliable purchasing experiences across customer touchpoints—without fear of downtime during peak sales periods. This strategic partnership has allowed us to provide a best-in-breed, customer-first experience that our customers demand while providing the reliability that our partners expect.

With customers demanding seamless shopping experiences, Marxent’s 3D technologies open doors to new, easier, more convenient, and more satisfying shopping experiences that empower consumers to buy the right products the first time. 

If you want to learn more about how Google Cloud can help your startup, visit our Startup Program application page here and sign up for our monthly startup newsletter to get a peek at our community activities, digital events, special offers, and more.

If you took one look at the title of this blog and thought, “just show me how, because I already know a million reasons why I’m stressed about billing things” then check out the interactive tutorial right here.

For everyone else, read on, because we’ll walk through some common sense tips, and a few step-by-step tutorials for all things billing related. If you’ve ever wished you could sit down with someone from Google Cloud, and walk through your bill, the console, and your options — you’re in the right place! Consider this Cloud Billing 101 – an intro level course that’ll get you started on the right foot.

6 simple tips to manage your Google Cloud billing accounts:

1. Get to know your billing statement and console: Knowledge is power, after all. Take a tour of the billing console so you can better understand your options, along with what’s included in your monthly bill and the different components.
2. Set up authorized users, alerts and budgets: Make sure anyone who needs to have access to payment settings is authorized. Allocate budgets for projects, and get notifications when your usage or spending exceeds a certain amount so you can take action as needed.
3. Use cost-saving tools: We’ve got  a range of tools and services to help you save money, like Committed Use Discounts, and even Recommenders for actionable, AI-powered intelligent recommendations around your cost trends and product usage.
4. Optimize your resources: Use the Google Cloud Resource Manager to see how your resources are being used and identify areas for optimization, temporarily suspend, or even shut down unused projects. 
5. Review your billing history with reporting and data visualization: Regularly check your billing history with reports to help track your spending, identify any trends or patterns, and even anticipate future costs. You can even export your data to BigQuery for detailed analysis, or use a tool like Google Data Studio to visualize your data.
6. Use the pricing calculator: Estimate your monthly costs and make informed decisions with the Google Cloud pricing calculator. It can help you get a ballpark figure for your usage, and determine if your use case fits within cost-free parameters.

I hope these common sense pointers and tutorials empower you to effectively manage your Google Cloud billing and stay on top of your spending. Get started right now by managing your billing methods and payment settings in this 5-minute tutorial, and then take a tour of the billing console to get familiar with your setup.