Editor’s note: Today’s blog post is from Mayank Singh, Chief Digital Officer and VP Marketing and IT at pizza delivery group Domino’s Indonesia. He explains how Google Maps Platform is enabling their business to optimize their operations and supporting the franchise’s ambitious expansion strategy in one of the world’s most exciting emerging markets.

When I was developing India’s first hyper local on-demand food delivery digital commerce platform for Domino’s Pizza India, I never imagined life would take me to a country with such a different culture to my own.

But in 2018, when Domino’s Indonesia invited me to drive its expansion strategy as Senior General Manager to lead Digital, IT and Marketing functions, I jumped at the chance to try my hand in another gigantic emerging nation that brims with entrepreneurial hunger and innovative energy.

Indonesia is a massive archipelago of more than 17,500 islands and 270 million people, one of the world’s most promising developing markets. Here, the opportunities for a global brand, such as Domino’s, are almost boundless. At the same time, we’re extremely cautious. We want to make sure that any new store we open has the correct demographic profile to be profitable.

This is one of the key areas in which Google Maps Platform enables us to satisfy the hunger of a vibrant, fast-moving society. The Google Maps Platform APIs empower us with much more than the ability to maintain Domino’s 30-minute delivery pledge. They play an instrumental role in our value chain before a store even begins selling pizzas, providing vital insights in our hunt for new shop locations.

Mapping the dizzying pace of change in one of Asia’s fastest growing economies

Under the Domino’s Indonesia model, every outlet has a defined territory and can only take orders from that zone. Instead of customers picking a store, we assign them one based on their location. That’s why selecting zones that have the highest profit potential (due to factors such as population, income, education, and business activity) is essential to our success.

The first step is casting a net around the test location that covers anywhere within a nine-minute drive to any point in the proposed zone. This is enabled by the Google Maps Platform APIs, including Distance Matrix API.

Things become really interesting and complicated when considering Indonesia’s dizzying pace of change. Social, economic, and infrastructure transformation in Indonesia literally unfolds before your eyes, meaning the map in any area can change overnight.

A place that had little to no development yesterday might be tomorrow’s next desirable suburb—populated by families drawn to new schools, but also increased traffic congestion caused by community growth. By overlaying our data, such as population, average income, and age range onto Google Maps, our team can better visualize the revenue potential in that zone compared to neighboring stores. Since the definition of a profitable zone is in constant flux, we need our local insights to be ahead of the game.

Charting Indonesia’s transformation with speed and accuracy is crucial in our mission to carve out delivery zones that serve communities that need our service most while maximizing our revenues.

Retrofitting Indonesian delivery zones to optimize Domino’s success

Expansion is just one side of the story. Just as important, we must keep an eye on existing outlets to make sure that traffic conditions, road configurations, prominent sites, public infrastructure, and more, hit the sweet spot for timely delivery and revenue optimization.

A successful delivery area, for example, might fall victim to its own popularity, causing congestion that prevents timely delivery to once viable addresses. In such cases, the specified drive time in the delivery matrix shrinks. We accordingly must downsize the service zone, while adding micro-zones to satisfy demand. Google Maps Platform features such as Traffic Layer in Maps JavaScript API enable the real-time traffic intelligence that helps us make precision calls in the evolving mission of zone optimization.

Conversely, we might want to expand a store territory thanks to a new highway or roadworks that improve traffic circulation. Here, too, Google Maps Platform is the fastest in mapping such shifts in the urban landscape. We’re even planning to experiment with a new feature whereby delivery zones change in size over the course of a day, based on factors such as peak traffic and roadworks. This new project will be enabled by Google Maps Platform real-time road intelligence.

Enabling Indonesia’s pandemic support with contactless delivery and support for frontline healthcare

Google Maps Platform also helps us respond quickly to societal changes. When the pandemic hit Indonesia, for example, our team was all hands on deck developing ways to deliver pizzas in the safest possible way. We overhauled our order system to make contactless delivery and contactless takeaway the default method of connecting customers to their pizzas. This was done to reassure customers how safe it is to order with Domino’s. Customers can locate us using the map UI, view the ordering options and have a contactless takeaway experience.

Google Maps Platform products such as Places API, which provides rich places details and location information as well as the Static Street View API which provides a more accurate visual of the location, now enable our drivers to pinpoint a drop spot, such as ‘the porch with the red roof’ with precision accuracy.

Our team is also proud of how we supported healthcare workers at the frontline of the pandemic. Google Maps Platform was an invaluable solution in enabling us to deliver pizzas to these vital frontline workers. It gave all of us at Domino’s Pizza Indonesia great satisfaction to see smiles on the faces of heroes working hard to keep people safe and well in this immense nation.

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

When Wyoming became the first state to transition all its employees to Google Workspace ten years ago, everyone expected a million dollars in cost savings. What started as a move to save money and ease communication has turned into much more. While the cost savings continues to be significant, state efficiency skyrocketed, allowing employees to spend more time working directly with the community.

This year, we’re celebrating 10 of the most important lessons learned over ten years in our Wyoming-Google partnership.

1. Collaborative tools breed a collaborative culture. Wyoming was prepared when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, forcing our workers to transition to at-home environments. Employees across the state were already using Google Workspace collaboration and productivity tools, which made the switch easy. We also had already set a precedent by hosting a key budget meeting over Google Meet from outside the country. Using Google Meet in such a high visibility meeting showed state employees that every level of government could benefit from digital collaboration. This culture was made possible by Google Workspace tools.

2. Digital tools can connect the community with essential services. That same collaborative spirit helped our government employees better connect with our community throughout the pandemic, delivering key information for food assistance, as an example. One in five children in Wyoming suffer from food insecurity. Google Workspace allows programs like the Wyoming Hunger Initiative to run smoothly, as everything from scheduling and planning events, to tracking and research, is handled with Google Workspace. The data gathered and stored in Google Cloud is protected and helps to bring meals to the kids who need them most.

3. Easy-to-use apps make transitions simpler. Google Workspace apps have been a breeze to learn from day one. They are designed to be intuitive and state employees are able to get the hang of the software simply by trying it themselves. We also developed a training series for new users to further ease the transition. Training is offered every six weeks so users can take the training when they are onboarded or at any time they need a refresher.As I started my career with the State of Wyoming, Wyoming began its journey as the first state to go Google – forever changing how and where we work. This was especially evident as we worked through our emergency telework at the height of the pandemic. Whether meeting with stakeholders around the capitol complex, across the state or teleworking from home, Google ensures our teams are always connected and collaborating.-Tim Sheehan
Interim CIO & Information Services Administrator, Dept. of Enterprise Technology Services

4. Invest in students, invest in the future. How do you enable students to retain access to their work and emails as they transition from elementary to middle and high school? Wyoming developed “Wyo for Life ,” which established a state email domain across all our school districts. Students get an email address with unlimited data that they can keep forever. This makes the transition for students seamless, and their digital portfolio is theirs for life.

5. Switching to Google Cloud saved millions on technology costs. The cost savings from moving to Google have taken many forms over the years. Google Cloud’s migration tools made it easy to move various systems to a single centralized platform, consolidating IT resources—and saving money—across the state. In the past 10 years, the cost of Google Workspace within the Department of Transportation has increased by only 7%, a third of the inflation rate over the same period. Our state also switched from a $1.5 million legacy video conferencing system to Google Chromeboxes in 2015—at a fraction of the cost. When combined with the savings over each year, the switch has saved taxpayers a compelling amount of money. This allows our state to keep innovating and adapting without putting pressure on taxpayers.

6. Security is both simpler and stronger. In the last decade, Wyoming has become the state with one of the best security records in the country. We have consistently ranked in the top five most secure states, year after year, with the help of Google Cloud. Other states have found it difficult to keep constituent data secure, and major breaches have left communities across the country floundering. By partnering with Google, we have ensured constituent data is constantly secure.

7. Flexibility is crucial for governments that want to grow. Focusing on flexibility, the State of Wyoming has been able to look at the needs of our employees and community and change the way we apply technology to our constituent services with Google Workspace. As those needs have changed, we have been able to shift our focus and better serve constituents without having to spend time rebuilding internal systems.

8. Working together has led to stronger, more cost-effective solutions over time. Our state has access to Google Cloud experts, and that relationship has allowed real flexibility. For example, Google Meet and its predecessor Google Hangouts, weren’t available at the beginning of our partnership. When it became clear that those tools could serve the Department of Corrections, we worked with Google Cloud to ensure the tool was added to our Google Workspace portfolio.

9. Workspace apps are always improving. Google Cloud is constantly evolving, upgrading, and improving their products to serve their users better. The hundreds of product updates they’ve put out over the years have benefited us as a long-term customer, and Google Workspace for Government ensures the complex problem of running an efficient public office has real solutions.

10. Community is key, even outside of Wyoming. The State of Wyoming is part of a larger community of public sector workers using Google called Public Sector Connect. All public sector employees can connect with others, join discussions, and get inspired by how Google tools are changing government and education. All community members hold positions in government or education, and new ideas are being shared every day. This community is at the forefront of public sector innovation. We meet with Google engineers and suggest solutions, feature set requests, and learn from others about problem-solving, innovation and implementation. This is the space that has been lacking in the public sector for years and if you are in the public sector, please join!

Using Google has allowed the State of Wyoming government to focus on our future roadmap. Over the last 10 years, instead of retrofitting our ideas into legacy technology or developing applications as we go, Google Workspace and Google Cloud contained all of the tools to achieve our milestones seamlessly. Google Workspace contains all of the applications our end users need for working remotely, in-person, or hybrid. The harmony between Google Workspace and Google Cloud opens new opportunities for our government, to include data analytics, big queries, and the use of artificial intelligence. Our enterprise processes have modernized thanks to the innovative solutions and support by Google. 

Now 10 years later, we are proud of the partnership we have built with Google Cloud and are looking forward to the next 10 years using Google to support our community.

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.

PIK Group is the leading developer of large-scale residential housing projects in Russia. Founded in 1994, PIK Group has built more than 300,000 apartments – 19 million square meters of residential real estate in Moscow and other cities.

To achieve and maintain its position at the top of the real estate industry, PIK Group has made innovation central to its business model, whether creating new building techniques or embracing automation. New technology, in particular, enables the company to achieve efficiencies at scale and streamline processes, such as with PIK Group’s app, developed in-house, through which engineers can send photographs as evidence of the quality of building work.

PIK Group looked for a reliable, fast way for teams to collaborate across multiple offices, on the road, and at construction sites. Because the company handles large volumes of sensitive customer data, security was a key concern. To create a collaboration platform ready to pull the company together, PIK Group looked for a cloud solution to streamline processes and improve productivity.

“The construction industry is progressing,” says Ilya Tikhomirov, CIO at PIK Group. “There are new ways of working, new construction processes, and new materials. PIK wants to lead change in that external context with an internal transformation.”

Automating collaborative processes for greater efficiency

“One team has information about the layout and condition of our buildings and can count the areas that need work, but then needs to match prices and the required work to that information. Previously, we would spend two to three weeks matching all the lists. Now, using Google Apps Script and Sheets, we can run calculations for a building in one hour.”

– Sergey Fuksman, Deputy CIO, PIK Group

Real estate companies of any size have to communicate between office-based staff and teams on the move. For PIK Group, with more than 7,000 employees and 70 offices in the Moscow region alone, communication has to operate at scale. Because each project involves multiple participants and numerous stages, the right collaboration tools can generate major efficiencies.

“Take costing and scheduling work in an apartment. What might sound simple is a complex process with numerous stages, says Ilya. “We need to define each and every step, and the materials required. One group of employees says what the task requires, then another group of employees cost the materials and labor, and yet another group matches the costs to the plan. That process alone requires a lot of communication and collaboration, and it’s just one of many in a single project.” To enhance collaboration, PIK Group looked to give staff instant access to a central, highly secure file repository from anywhere at anytime.

“It’s so much easier to work with our 2,000 suppliers when we share Docs and Sheets instead of emailing back and forth. The speed and convenience of this new way of working is immediately clear. A number of our third-party contractors have been so impressed that they’ve implemented G Suite at their own firms.”

– Ilya Tikhomirov, CIO, PIK Group

To do that, PIK Group implemented the full range of G Suite collaborative tools across more than 7,000 employees. “G Suite has helped change the way employees think about the work they do,” says Ilya. “It has helped them to foster the culture of a small start-up, with all of the agility associated with that.” Now staff at more than 70 offices in the Moscow region managing the construction and sale of apartment blocks, meet and communicate using Google Hangouts and collaborate over distance on Google Sheets and Google Docs, reducing the need to travel and increasing their efficiency by approximately 20%.

In order to reduce the complex, laborious work of prototyping projects, PIK Group automates aspects of the process using Google Apps Script to match lists in different Sheets and generate documents, as Sergey Fuksman, Deputy CIO at PIK Group explains: “One team has information about the layout and condition of our buildings and can count the areas that need work, but then need to match prices and the required work to that information. Previously, we would spend two to three weeks matching all the lists. Now, using Apps Script and Sheets, we can run calculations for a building in one hour.”

Migrating to the cloud for machine learning at scale

With over 7,000 G Suite accounts implemented, PIK Group has set its sights on migrating local infrastructure to Google Cloud Platform. “We have a big IT department with many developers, and we want to redirect them to important projects instead of IT maintenance,” says Ilya. “With machine learning and TensorFlow, we plan to use data from over 50 systems to inform business decisions.”

PIK Group’s internal change is already yielding external results. “It’s so much easier to work with our 2,000 suppliers when we share Docs and Sheets instead of emailing back and forth,” says Ilya. “The speed and convenience of this new way of working is immediately clear. A number of our third-party contractors have been so impressed that they’ve implemented G Suite at their own firms.”