How Russia’s Largest Housing Developer Reduced Construction Planning Time from Two Weeks to One Hour
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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.”
Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital Cuts IT Support Tickets By 80% With Google
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About Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital
Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital specializes in treating eye conditions such as cataracts; glaucoma; corneal problems such as ulcers, inflammation, and thinning; and retinal issues such as degeneration and detachment. The business operates 62 hospitals in cities across India and 14 hospitals in 8 countries in Africa, including Zambia, Nigeria, and Ghana.
Founded by the late Dr. J. Agarwal, Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital, headquartered in Chennai, India, operates 62 hospitals in cities across India and 14 hospitals in 8 countries in Africa, including Zambia, Nigeria, and Ghana.
According to Dilip Ramadasan, GM-IT, Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital, the business is the second-largest network of eye-care hospitals globally and aims to provide the best eye care in the world.
“We have focused on service over the last couple of years and decided to completely revamp back-end operations such as information technology and finance,” says Dilip.
“Realizing our vision involved moving to a completely new infrastructure that could deliver the scalability, agility, and performance our evolving application stack required.”
Replacing Aging Desktop Hardware and Applications
The business placed particular emphasis on upgrading its aging desktop fleet and traditional productivity applications.
“When I arrived in 2015, we only had 35 hospitals and all of them were using desktops that were five years or older,” Dilip says. “These desktops were due for replacement within the following six months to a year, so I had an ideal opportunity to upgrade our capabilities and address issues such as excessive support costs and resource requirements.”
For example, if a desktop at a hospital in a remote location experienced a problem, Dilip had to dispatch one of his technology team members to fix the issue. This could take up to five days, while the employee whose desktop was underperforming or failing often needed to wait until the fix was applied before resuming work.
Three Criteria for Improvement
When evaluating options to enhance the hospital’s information technology environment, Dilip applied three criteria: increasing revenue, increasing efficiency, and reducing costs.
Dilip elected to replace the traditional desktops and applications with Chromebase devices running Google Chrome and G Suite applications. “This option aligned perfectly with our efficiency and cost criteria,” he says.
The business started a four-month pilot of Chromebase devices with G Suite in October 2015 at four newly-opened hospitals.
“We wanted to see how users would react to the Chromebases running G Suite compared to the traditional desktops and applications,” he adds. “A large component of the project entailed educating users about the benefits of G Suite applications such as Google Docs and Sheets.”
Chromebases Running G Suite Deployed to 600 Users
Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital has completed the deployment of Chromebases running G Suite to 600 users. This group comprised team members who needed to access a billing application or a human resources management system and doctors who needed to access patients’electronic medical records.
“My desktop total cost of ownership fell by up to 70% when I deployed these devices,” Dilip says.
With G Suite running on Chromebase devices, Dilip has been able to resolve many desktop support issues remotely, minimizing the need to send support team members to distant locations.
“The number of support tickets we used to process on the desktop computing side has fallen by a full 80%,” he says. “As a result, I’ve been able to cut the number of desktop support team members from eight to three and redeploy them to server and application management and support.”
Dilip cites Sheets and Google Drive as the G Suite applications most beneficial to the business.
Sheets enables hospital team members to share important cost and revenue numbers without having to attach multiple versions of spreadsheets to emails, while Google Drive facilitates collaboration by enabling the team members to store and view shared documents.
“Team members are able to spend more time on core activities rather than on picking up numbers and sharing them with regional managers,” Dilip says.
The business also uses Google Vault to protect management data held in emails and help ensure compliance with legislative requirements.
Google Cloud Platform Products Under Evaluation
Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital is evaluating extending its deployment of Google Cloud Platform products to Google BigQuery and Google Data Studio.
“We are looking to add a business intelligence layer over applications running in other cloud environments, and Google potentially provides an option to do that,” Dilip says.
“This layer would enable us to analyze electronic medical record data to increase our understanding of patterns such as how a particular disease affects an individual across various stages of life and what types of interventions would deliver the best results.”
“Google has introduced the flexibility we need to reposition our engineers as needed, improved the relationship between the information technology team and operations teams, and given the information technology team greater confidence in resolving issues,” adds Dilip. “We will be continuing to scout for opportunities across Google platforms to increase our revenue and efficiencies while decreasing our costs.”
The Story Behind How Woolworth Innovates to Better Customer Experience
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As one of Australia and New Zealand’s most innovative retailers, Woolworths is always looking for ways to use technology to give its customers more convenient ways to shop. This innovative approach does not stop with our customers. Our extensive staff needs intuitive technology to enable them to work more efficiently, collaboratively and effectively. To do this, they need to be able to access the right applications and information, from any location, using any device.
This is why we’ve decided to move to G Suite and Chrome. Changing to a cloud-based suite of tools is a key part of our strategy to use technology to promote greater collaboration, productivity, and effectiveness. Over the next 12 months, we will be rolling out Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Hangouts Meet to the staff in our national and state offices. This is the first phase of what we hope will be a company-wide transformation of our workplace technology.
We are also actively looking at how we can innovate with Google+, Google Drive and Google Sites to transform the way we approach other aspects of our business.
The move to G Suite and Chrome builds on the successful roll-out of Gmail and our ‘Tap to Support’ app on iPads to Woolworths supermarket store managers last year. The custom-made application, built on Google App Engine, helps our managers stay on the shop floor and focused on customers by allowing them to log a support ticket with our national support office in just one click rather than being tied to a PC in the back office.
Soon more of our staff will be able to experience the productive and collaborative benefits of being able to work from any device, anywhere. Geographically dispersed teams, like our merchandising or state-based workers, will be able to use Google Docs to collaborate in real-time.
Going Google will transform the way our employees interact with technology and collaborate with each other at every level of the organization. We’re looking forward to providing our staff with access to intuitive consumer technology at work and see the move to Google as the beginning of our journey towards a more efficient and innovative style of working.
Geneva Business School: Empowering the business leaders of tomorrow with collaborative mindsets
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Education is about more than just imparting information. For the Geneva Business School (GBS), education is about teaching the necessary skills to adapt, survive, and thrive in the world after pupils have graduated. With a diverse, international student body spread out over five campuses, the school prides itself on fostering leadership, communication, and productivity skills as well as academic achievement. In 2016, GBS began searching for ways to help its students work together and improve communication. To do that, it turned to Google Workspace for Education.
“We wanted our content stored in a digital environment where the students could collaborate on projects even when working remotely,” says Carlos Moreno Gonzalez, Barcelona Campus Director at Geneva Business School. “For us the solution was Google Workspace.”
Improving collaboration, increasing accountability
Prior to 2016, GBS’ online course components were designed to be worked on individually. Students could download course materials from extranet sites to work offline on traditional word processing and spreadsheet software. If they were working together, they had to be physically in the same room or would communicate over email. GBS places a strong emphasis on collaborative work, but in such a fragmented setup, it could be hard for professors to work out exactly who had contributed what in each group.
“In just a few clicks you can get a really good picture of the whole class. Whenever we tried this before Google Classroom, we would enter the grades manually and it took forever.”
Sabrina Espasandin, Instructional Designer and Google Trainer, Geneva Business School
For GBS, the solution came from its Barcelona campus, which has a reputation as something of an innovation hub, says Sabrina Espasandin, Instructional Designer and Google Trainer at the school. “It’s smaller than the main campus in Switzerland so there’s more scope for experimenting with new technologies,” she says. GBS wanted to do more than just upgrade its email. The objective was to build an entire online platform enabling students, faculty, and staff to not only communicate with each other, but also to use it as a productivity platform for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more.
Connecting students and professors with Google Classroom
After evaluating its options, the Barcelona campus chose to implement Google Workspace for Education in early 2016, largely because of the widespread adoption of Google tools by students in their personal lives. “Most of our students were very familiar with Google tools and how Google works,” says Carlos. “It made the transition much easier for them.” With such a radical change, GBS also made sure to provide adequate training for everybody to help them overcome any issues that might arise during the transition. “There was a little pushback from people who had been using the same tools for a long time,” says Sabrina. “But once they saw for themselves the benefits of the new system, we turned sceptics into believers.”
The core of the new system was Google Classroom, a single, online destination where teachers and students could quickly and easily interact with each other no matter where they were. Gmail replaced the traditional email system, easing the load on the campus servers. Live editing in Docs, Sheets, and Slides meant that students could work on projects and presentations at the same time without having to email multiple versions, which could get buried in long threads.
“It’s changed the whole way we work. Students would post questions online, and other students would answer them before the teacher got there. It means the knowledge comes from the class, not just from the professor.” –
Carlos Moreno Gonzalez, Barcelona Campus Director, Geneva Business School
The faculty used Sites as an opportunity to update their course materials from static slideshows that had to be downloaded for offline viewing, into animated, interactive pages online. Meanwhile, Forms proved itself useful as a way for professors to setup quizzes online and, in conjunction with Google Classroom, to help automate the marking process and quickly analyze results.
A new platform, a new way of working
The online hub that GBS built in Barcelona with Google Classroom and Google Workspace was very quickly seen as a success. So much so, that within six months, the school rolled out Google Workspace to all of its other campuses. As of Q3 2018, GBS has activated more than 2,300 user accounts. The students benefit from instant communication, frictionless collaboration, and the ability to work on projects outside the classroom. It also means they are in a better position to answer each other’s questions without having to wait for a response from their teacher.
Meanwhile, GBS’ teachers no longer have to deal with an extranet that required them to upload all their own content in an overly complicated way or spend hours bulk-creating new email addresses at the start of each year. “The time saved in administrative tasks has been massive,” says Sabrina. “User creation is a breeze compared to the past.” In addition, the faculty found a new efficiency with rote tasks, such as grading analysis, which allowed them to spend more time focusing on students and assessing their specific needs.
“In just a few clicks you can get a really good picture of the whole class,” says Sabrina. “Whenever we tried this before Google Classroom, we would enter the grades manually and it took forever.”
“We’ve built a very personalized online platform designed to engage students and reduce dropout rates. With Google, we hope to bring the collaborative spirit we have in our normal classes to our online classrooms.” –
Carlos Moreno Gonzalez, Barcelona Campus Director, Geneva Business School
Meanwhile, Professors have found that, despite fears of an always-online culture, the collaborative nature of the new platform empowers students to help each other instead of just relying on help from the faculty.
“It’s changed the whole way we work,” says Carlos. “Students would post questions online, and other students would answer them before the teacher got there. It means the knowledge comes from the class, not just from the professor.”
With all of GBS migrated to Google Workspace, the search is on for the next leap forward. The school is currently working hard to provide some of its courses entirely online, for students who wish to work remotely but still benefit from GBS’ superior teaching and strong reputation. The content for the new modules will be hosted on Sites, while Google Classroom will serve as a central hub for teacher-student communication. GBS is working to personalize the modules for teachers and students alike. For example, every teacher will have access to a classroom roster that provides quick links to students’ digital portfolios, also hosted on a Google Site.
Building on the knowledge it has acquired in the last two years with various Google tools, the school is trying to make online learning more effective, as well as develop more in-depth measurements of student growth and progression. As it becomes more comfortable with Google Workspace and Google Classroom, GBS can look forward to exploring its new metrics with tools such as Google Data Studio.
“We’ve built a very personalized online platform designed to engage students and reduce dropout rates,” says Carlos. “With Google, we hope to bring the collaborative spirit we have in our normal classes to our online classrooms.”
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The future of meetings in G Suite: Vision and roadmap
A study from MIT Sloan school in early April showed that 47% of US workers were already working from home. Compare that to just 13% before the pandemic. And these numbers are likely to be even greater today.
Video meetings help us connect in a human way, whether it’s for work, a personal commitment, or for education. We have seen Meet’s day-over-day growth surpass 60%. Meet daily usage is more than 30 times what it was in January 2020. And we have been able to scale to this demand easily. Scalability, security, reliability, come naturally to Google Cloud and are in-built into all our services. Our customers have been reaching out to tell us how much this has helped them shift to remote work rapidly during the pandemic.
G Suite continues to innovate on how teams communicate effectively, regardless of whether they are located in the same office or thousands of miles apart. In this video, we share our vision for the future of meetings, small and large, and how these innovations will help build human connections in a video-first world. We’ll also provide a sneak peek into what we’re doing to transform the overall life cycle of a meeting, from scheduling to follow-up.
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Say Hello to Google Workspace
Make way for Google Workspace to connect, create, and collaborate with your team and organization. Watch the video to explore how you can achieve more with Google Workspace and how it can transform the future of workplace!
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