Running a business requires making many important decisions. One of them would be selecting your main working- and communication tools. If you wish to save time with the selection, installation, and payment of the unique services from suppliers, you should rely on the Google Workspace ecosystem to fulfill your team’s claims with one flexible subscription. Today, we are going to look closely at 6 reasons why using Google Workspace is a good idea if you want to manage your business efficiently and effortlessly.
What is Google Workspace?
Google Workspace is an office suite built around the trusted Gmail. It includes email accounts, a messaging system, video conferencing software, a calendar, text editors, spreadsheets, presentations, forms, a site wizard, and spacious cloud storage for all your business data.
The easy scalability of the service ensures that entrepreneurs can tailor costs and features perfectly to each stage of a company’s growth:
- If you run a sole proprietorship or a local business, you will only need one account in the basic package to provide professional service to your clients, for which you will need to pay a small amount per month.
- Growing startups benefit from dynamically adjusting the service to the number of employees and increasing the number of accounts and the size of the cloud storage as needed.
- Large companies can create their own special add-ons and easily maintain control over the data stored in the accounts of hundreds of employeesScalability, low cost, and versatility are just the tip of the iceberg when talking about the benefits of using Google Workspace for business purposes. It would be nearly impossible to summarize it all in one article, as every company will find its way to use Google’s cloud apps.
6 Reasons Why You Should Use Google Workspace
But if you’re still hesitant about whether it’s worth investing in this toolbox, here are 6 universal reasons to help you make that decision – as they’ve also helped thousands of FOTC customers successfully elevate their business with Google Cloud.
#1 Professional email addresses
Fortunately, fewer and fewer companies are using private email accounts to keep in touch with their customers. In today’s virtual space, an e-mail address is the equivalent of a business card – an entrepreneur who uses an email address like [email protected] builds more trust than the one who reaches out to his customers using a generic email address such as [email protected].
Therefore, every company that purchases a web domain address needs to link this address to their employees’ email addresses – and this is exactly what Google Workspace achieves. But not just that.
Each Google Workspace account has the same corporate Gmail mailbox but does not use only one address. This service provides several options for companies to adapt email addresses to the employees’ or the projects’ specific needs.
Alternative email addresses
Each user can have up to 30 aliases, which are alternate addresses that lead to the same account. For instance: an accountant whose main email address is [email protected] can also use the following addresses: [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].
Multi-domain support
If you manage multiple companies or brands, you can set up domain aliases or additional domains. As a result of the former, all employees can use the following addresses in turns: [email protected] and [email protected]. Secondary domains allow you to divide your employees into project teams – you can create accounts for them in different domains within a single instance of Google Workspace.
Group mailing lists
An e-mail group is an address shared by several users that redirects messages to all associated mailboxes. For example, an email sent to [email protected] goes to all members of the marketing department at once.
#2 The best corporate post office
Gmail is one of the most popular email services in the world, with over 1.8 billion users. Most of your employees are probably already using Gmail for private purposes, so it will only come naturally to them to manage their work accounts after the introduction of Google Workspace. What is the reason this service is so popular even though there are many alternatives on the market? Gmail is superior, thanks to its features and services such as:
- Convenient email management on smartphones thanks to the mobile app.
- No ads or spam – The business Gmail account offers reliable spam filters that allow employees to manage their daily mail uninterrupted.
- Phishing Protection – Google Workspace’s Gmail service supports advanced sender verification with DMARC and SPF records and DKIM keys. All suspicious messages in your mailbox are marked, significantly reducing the risk of phishing.
- Smart Compose, based on artificial intelligence, enhances the speed of writing your emails and to work more efficiently as a result.
- An advanced search engine for mail and attachments helps you narrow down your results with additional operators and facilitates the process of files and messages in the Google Chat archive.
- Integration with other Google applications – In the Gmail window you can easily access your chats, Meet meetings, Keep notes, your calendar, and to-do-list.
A great advantage of a Gmail account is that it has the necessary tools to organize emails for all levels of users. This is the ideal account for both the average Internet user who uses a Gmail account to receive notifications about his online purchases and a customer service professional who sends and receives hundreds of emails daily.
If you’re not one of those people who check their inbox every ten minutes, you will benefit from the four default categories in Gmail: Primary, Social, Updates, and Promotions. On the other hand, if you want to organize your email in your way, Gmail offers dozens of advanced options for configuring your inbox.
#3 Plenty of space for files
Google Drive is a place to store not only the user-uploaded files but also files from all the applications that are part of the Google Workspace suite. Depending on the plan you choose, each employee has 30GB to 5TB, and the Enterprise plan has unlimited storage space in the cloud.
If you store files locally on your device’s hard disk, there is a risk of losing them as soon as something happens to your computer. Google Drive eliminates this problem by storing all your data in the cloud, allowing you to access your work files from any device you use to sign in to your Google Account. This feature of Google Drive makes it easier for businesses to work remotely or in hybrid mode and keeps your corporate files safe – no one can read them unless they share them.
Control over accessibility
Sharing files from storage allows suitable collaboration within the team as well as with contractors and customers outside the organization. Emailing heavy attachments is out of date – now you can just insert a link to a file in the email or share it directly from Drive. You can give other users editing, commenting, or viewing-only permissions — and you can revoke those permissions at any time if you want to suspend an interaction with a particular person in a file or folder.
Field of cooperation
Shared Drive is a feature that saves you time by sharing files with people you work with regularly. If you want to store all the files for a particular project or company department in one place, create a shared drive and add team members to it. What’s on such a drive belongs to all the people who have been assigned to it. If a member leaves the team, all the files they have created will remain in place.
Support for all formats
Google Drive not only lets you store media and documents in all formats, but you can also edit files created in other programs, such as Microsoft Word or Excel, in Google Apps. As a result, if your partner uses third-party editors, you can continue to work with them in the Google Cloud without any problems. To learn more about Google Cloud, head to our latest blog and find out how can it help your business!
#4 Online Meetings in Google Meet
In a time of social isolation, video calling has become a daily part of every office worker – and few want to give it up, even when the epidemic is over. While there’s no substitute for face-to-face meetings, video conferencing is the next best way to connect and discuss current issues within the team. Many companies have finally adopted the habit of conducting recruitment interviews online – a convenient solution for both the candidate and the recruiter.
By purchasing a Google Workspace account, you give your employees access to the advanced video conferencing software, Google Meet. This is one of the fastest-growing apps in Google’s portfolio, and to this day its key features include:
- Full integration with Gmail, Chat, and Calendar – Every scheduled meeting in Google Calendar includes a link to an auto-created video conference room. You can also create an appointment in Gmail or directly in the Google Chat window.
- Access for all – Anyone invited can join the video conference, whether they use Google Workspace, free Gmail, or a third-party email account.
- Join Offline Meetings – We generate a unique phone number for each conference so you can stay connected without internet access.
- Up to 250 participants in the conference at the same time – up to 250 people can actively participate in the conversation.
- Live streaming from the domain to up to 100,000 people – live streaming is a great way to share your knowledge with a wide audience without interacting with them live. This Meet feature is particularly useful for vertical communication in large organizations.
- Noise cancellation – an intelligent algorithm reduces unnecessary background noise picked up by the microphone so that all participants can always hear you loud and clear.
- Raise your hand – the request to speak button makes it easy to organize your meetings.
- Chat, questionnaire, and Q&A – you can also contact participants in writing during a video conference to send them a link or express your opinion without interrupting the person who is speaking. The meeting organizer can also create questionnaires and Q&As in the Meet window.
- Shared Notepads – launch the Jamboard in the Meet room to give all participants a virtual space to record their ideas.
- Hide Background – if you are concerned about privacy and don’t want to show the interior space you are in during the meeting, you can use the option to blur the background and replace it with any image or animated video.
- Record Meetings – all Meet conferences can be recorded and automatically saved to the organizer’s Google Drive as a video file.
- Screen sharing – not everything can be expressed with facial expressions, so in Meet you can share what’s right on your desktop or in a browser window to show other participants what you’re talking about.
#5 Team schedule in the Calendar
Another indispensable app is Calendar – the calendar which is available in Google Workspace supports not only the coordination of your work but also the collaboration of the group.
As a Google Calendar user, you can view other employees’ calendars as well as the schedules of entire departments or resources, such as conference rooms or company cars. In your colleagues’ calendars, you can find information about:
- Working hours
- Holidays
- Birthdays
- Daily work location (office, home, or another place)
- Scheduled appointments – You can share full information about events or hide details to show others only the appointment time as “busy”.
When you invite someone to a meeting in Calendar, it automatically creates a room for video conferencing in Google Meet and sends an email notification to participants where they can confirm their participation with a single click.
With Google Calendar, everyone saves time finding the right time and booking company resources, and daily collaboration becomes more transparent.
#6 Web and mobile file editing applications
Creating electronic documents is an integral part of office work. Google Workspace accounts have all the file editors your employees need:
- Google Docs
- Google Sheets
- Google Slides
- Google Forms
- Google Sites
All these programs work equally well in the browser on computers and mobile apps on smartphones. You don’t have to install them on your device, all modifications to your files are processed in the cloud. However, if you wish to work without internet access, turn on offline sync on your work computer.
Closing Thoughts
We hope our article helped you learn more about Google Workspace and all its features and functionalities you can use in managing your team. Don’t forget to check back soon for the 2nd part of our article, where we will share 6 more reasons why you should start Google Workspace. See you there!