The use case is a small business in the process of developing a content strategy for a website. A common user that is me already has a Google account, searched online for Google Apps for Business, and then decided to take advantage of the variety of resources available for the G Suite.
Software Tester at a tech consulting company with 11-50 employees
Google Apps for Business: Useful for When Your business is Already Running
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
I have no nonprofit organization, so it has not improved anything. However, the extra space in Drive is a potential improvement in user experience because most of the people in our organization are using either a Dropbox or Drive space.
What is most valuable?
Since my goal was to extend my analysis, I found the additional Drive and Gmail storage to be very valuable. Next is the interroperability with Microsoft Outlook, which is a feature also used with Hotmail. I figured the 24/7 phone and email support was a must, too for a new business/startup.
What needs improvement?
The Outlook integration or plug-in for current outlook clients is a huge area for improvement. Calendar, contact, all that can be synched needs to be managed too.
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For how long have I used the solution?
Less than one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No, not really. But it was rather extra work to configure the IMAP or POP on a smartphone.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No.
How are customer service and support?
Customer Service: I would say that the customer service responded. There was a really fast email response and there were links to educational materials in relation to deployment. Technical Support: Prompt and fixed.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
No, I did not use a different solution.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is complex. It involved browsing, knowledge of IMAP and POP, and the two-step verification was in place, and then I had to consult with the smartphone provider before I access the Google Apps for Business.
What about the implementation team?
I did not implement through a vendor team.
What was our ROI?
I wanted to see if it would help make better use of my Google+ pages for business. I wanted everything to appear seamlessly, and effortlessly painless.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The average day-to-day cost is a little bit extra storage capacity for the browsing on my smartphone, which I normally don't use for the specific tasks.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I looked at cloud.google.com, and then I also took another look at blog hosting that provides email and website hosting.
What other advice do I have?
I think the on-boarding could be made more efficient, but that doesn't mean more time.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
CEO with 51-200 employees
Great for collaboration, but fairly frequent performance problems.
Valuable Features:
Great for collaboration. Google spreadsheets can pull data directly from a big data database, enabling sharing across an enterprise.
Room for Improvement:
Fairly frequent performance problems.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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December 2024
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Content strategist at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Easy to use, simple to navigate around and very stable
Pros and Cons
- "From a security point of view, Google will alert you if anything strange is happening. They will flag it for you so you are aware."
- "Google Meet can have a bit more functionality. It should show the views of more people. Right now, it shows just eight at a maximum, or six. When there are more people on the call, more than eight, everyone is not showing."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use G Suite for our internal tasks. In the company, all the accounts are set up in the G Suite. We use chat also, as well as video functionality and the drive on offer. We do calls through Google G Suite itself.
What is most valuable?
It's a good solution.
It's simple to use and navigate.
I like the video capabilities. I like it more than Microsoft Teams and Zoom as well, due to the fact that it's so simple.
The functionality is really simple and it's absolutely cloud-based and it's easy to use and it's fast.
The solution is stable.
You can scale the product.
From a security point of view, Google will alert you if anything strange is happening. They will flag it for you so you are aware.
What needs improvement?
Google Meet can have a bit more functionality. It should show the views of more people. Right now, it shows just eight at a maximum, or six. When there are more people on the call, more than eight, everyone is not showing. That's an improvement that can be made so that we can see everyone who actually enters a meeting.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for one year. It hasn't been that long.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable and the performance is good. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product is scalable. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so.
Currently, we have about 450 people using the product.
How are customer service and technical support?
I've never dealt with technical support. I've never had any problems and therefore I have never had to reach out. I can't speak to how helpful or responsive they are.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I also have experience with Microsoft Teams as well as Zoom (for video conferencing tasks).
However, we have only used this product and did not use anything else previously.
How was the initial setup?
I did not handle any aspect of the installation process. I can't speak to how easy or difficult it was, how long it took, or what was involved in executing.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I can't speak to the cost of the product or how much our company pays. I don't deal with payments or licensing.
What other advice do I have?
I'm a customer and an end-user. I use this product at my current company.
We use the enterprise version of the solution.
I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.
I would recommend the product to other users and organizations.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
CEO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
High performance, easy to use, and great collaboration functions
Pros and Cons
- "The valuable features of this solution are ease of use, performance is great, and collaboration. It is very easy to share and joins documents."
- "In some cases, we are using the Google Meet functions but only when we have external clients. Internally, we are using Slack. Google Meet virtual meeting function is not as advanced as the one in Slack and should improve."
What is our primary use case?
We are using this solution for internal office collaboration, for example, shared documents and storage. We are also using Jira, and this is what supports our internal processes development, and support processes.
What is most valuable?
The valuable features of this solution are ease of use, performance is great, and collaboration. It is very easy to share and joins documents.
What needs improvement?
In some cases, we are using the Google Meet functions but only when we have external clients. Internally, we are using Slack. Google Meet virtual meeting function is not as advanced as the one in Slack and should improve.
There could be better integration between other platforms.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for approximately four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have found that G Suite Enterprise has good scalability. We have 15 users using this solution in my organization.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We pay a monthly subscription for the use of this solution.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated the Microsoft package, but then we decided on this solution. We found it suited us better and the collaboration was easier.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to others.
I rate G Suite Enterprise an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
key founder and Managing Director at adcareIT
Good mobile features, excellent search capabilities, and allows for multiple users to edit one document simultaneously
Pros and Cons
- "They are launching more and more features for mobile, which I understand our customers appreciate."
- "I am not a big fan of how Gmail organizes the mail. I find it complicated to see which mail from which users send at which date. Especially if there is a lot."
What is our primary use case?
We tend to implement this solution for our clients. The solution is mainly used for email.
What is most valuable?
Most of our customers are using the basic version.
A lot of the customers use Google Suite. They like the word processing, spreadsheets, database, and presenting tools of Google. Younger customers, newer companies, are more used to full Google. Google Docs, Google Spreadsheet, and so, on as they used it already as a student. They are quite comfortable with the solution and find it user-friendly and easy to navigate - more so than Microsoft, for example.
The ability for multiple users to work in one document is very useful.
The Gmail search tool is excellent. They have the most powerful search tool of all the email managers I work with. They are much, much better than Outlook, for instance. The Outlook search machine is fairly poor actually. If you have a lot of emails and you will do a search, it misses a lot.
They are launching more and more features for mobile, which I understand our customers appreciate.
What needs improvement?
I am not a big fan of how Gmail organizes the mail. I find it complicated to see which mail from which users send at which date. Especially if there is a lot.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using the solution for about ten years or so. It's been a long time at this point.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The companies we work with are 100% small and medium-sized. We don't have any enterprise or corporate customers.
How are customer service and technical support?
While I have never directly dealt with technical support from Google, from talking with my team, it is my understanding that they are quite good. I would say that we are satisfied with the level of support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We've also worked with Microsoft. We mostly use that in my office.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Given how happy our customers have been with the solution, I would rate it at an eight out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
We're a Google partner and we sell to our customers G Suite, or Google Works as it is called now. That's what we do. We're are also a Microsoft partner. We do a lot with Dynamics, Navision Microsoft Dynamics, and we're also a reseller of Microsoft 365. We do backup and disaster recovery in partnership with N‑able. All these things, we do as an MSP. We do remote monitoring as a platform solution where you buy the agents and you do your own management or we do it as an MSP where we do 24/7 management, for instance, of your server monitoring.
We are a managed service provider or a total IT service provider to the market. We do a variety of solutions, primarily for SMEs.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
CEO at Shivaami Cloud Services Pvt. Ltd.
We can have Common Files shared among users.
Valuable Features
- Gmail
- Docs
- Hangout
- Calendar
Improvements to My Organization
- Weekly meetings through Hangout across the branches
- Common Files shared among users
Room for Improvement
It needs better Enterprise controls.
Use of Solution
We've used it for seven years.
Deployment Issues
Mainly migration issues from IBM Notes.
Stability Issues
There were no issues with the stability.
Scalability Issues
We've had no issues scaling it.
Customer Service and Technical Support
Customer Service:
It's good.
Technical Support:It's good.
Initial Setup
It's very straightforward.
Implementation Team
We did it in-house.
ROI
It's justifiable.
Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing
The price is attractive as India enjoys a special price.
Other Solutions Considered
There were no other options looked at.
Other Advice
Go for it and use it effectively. Do take change management from Google.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
IT Manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Has an easy setup and good technical support
Pros and Cons
- "The solution's technical support is very good."
- "The stability should be addressed."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for collaborative jobs, email, meetings, Google Drive and for storing information.
What needs improvement?
While, overall, I am satisfied with the solution, the stability could be improved, such as the issue of Google meetings being disparate from those on Zoom platforms.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using G Suite Enterprise for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability should be addressed.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Since I am using the cloud, I am not in a position to comment on the solution's scalability.
How are customer service and technical support?
The solution's technical support is very good.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of G Suite Enterprise is easy.
While I cannot recall exactly how long the full deployment took us, I believe we are talking about two or three months. During this period we needed to migrate from Microsoft to Google, after which we had some work to tend to.
What other advice do I have?
There are around 4,000 people using the solution in our organization.
My advice to others is to not give up, since the starter form changed and they'll be off work.
I rate G Suite Enterprise as a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Professional Prospect List Building Service Provider, Email Sourcer, Virtual Assistant at Freelance
An enterprise workspace solution with adequate storage and easy email account creation
Pros and Cons
- "I think it is a great subscription for me. I think it is important, especially when making an internal email subscription. For example, I can easily create my colleague's email address, and we can use it. I benefited from G Suite. I am using the G Suite Drive, which provides 30GB of storage, and it is helping for me. I think it's better for me."
- "I talked with G Suite recently because my G Suite has a temporary block. I communicated with the G Suite representative or Google representative, and he told me that I sent a lot of emails, so my email was temporarily blocked. But I know I have not sent more than 500 emails daily to reach the limit. I sent only 5,200 emails, but unfortunately, my G Suite account was temporarily blocked for 24 hours, and then he resolved it. I think they need to improve G Suite because this temporary block is not fair."
What is our primary use case?
I use G Suite Enterprise for email.
What is most valuable?
I think it is a great subscription for me. I think it is important, especially when making an internal email subscription. For example, I can easily create my colleague's email address, and we can use it. I benefited from G Suite. I am using the G Suite Drive, which provides 30GB of storage, and it is helping for me. I think it's better for me.
What needs improvement?
I talked with G Suite recently because my G Suite has a temporary block. I communicated with the G Suite representative or Google representative, and he told me that I sent a lot of emails, so my email was temporarily blocked. But I know I have not sent more than 500 emails daily to reach the limit. I sent only 5,200 emails, but unfortunately, my G Suite account was temporarily blocked for 24 hours, and then he resolved it. I think they need to improve G Suite because this temporary block is not fair.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using G Suite Enterprise for just one month.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
G Suite Enterprise is stable.
How are customer service and technical support?
I am definitely satisfied with its technical support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Initially, I used Microsoft Outlook for almost six months. I used those subscriptions, but I cannot buy the Microsoft mailbox service. I tried to communicate with a Microsoft representative, and she tried many times over two hours, but she cannot install or buy my subscription. After that, she provided me with our local representative number. Unfortunately, I cannot reach those people. That's when I escaped Microsoft Outlook and moved to Google G Suite. I think G Suite features are better for me.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale from one to ten, I would give G Suite Enterprise an eight.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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