The Office Is Dead, Long Live The Office

Sponsored Post Economic stability is generally an ambition rather than a certainty in today's climate, so businesses must be more agile than ever in adapting to rapidly changing circumstances.

And that means giving workers flexible and reliable communication and collaboration tools which let them stay in touch and work together from wherever they happen to be at any one time.

A recent study compiled by research firm IDC suggests that Google Workspace can boost its users' productivity by up to 14 percent, delivering an additional 265 hours per user per year. That equates to an 11 month payback on the cost of its subscription, and an even healthier 412 percent return on investment over three years. Larger SMEs could even see up to US$44.3m in annual benefits, calculated IDC.

Much of those productivity gains of course stem from people being able to work effectively from either the home or the office according to their need or preference. Whether that involves sharing email, online chat, schedules, video calls with colleagues and business partners or working collaboratively on documents, spreadsheets and presentations, Google Workspace has the tools to do it within a single portal, accessed using one user name and password.

Different teams can work on the same document easily with the integrated chat function quickly granting share requests for example. A complete record of all revisions is stored so workers can retrieve or restore anything they want, with real time access offering considerable potential to reduce project lifecycles and get things done more quickly.

The cloud-hosted office suite works the same on any web browser and looks equally as user friendly on small laptop screens as it does on larger desktop monitors. It offers a range of subscription plans to suit every SME budget, with Business and Enterprise options offering enhanced security features like two step secure key authentication, email scanning and restrictions on third-party access to account data.

Remote working is no longer a nice to have, it's a must have from an operational perspective, and a critical factor in any employee recruitment and retention strategy. That's particularly true for SMEs looking to optimize operational cost and revenue by consolidating or eliminating commercial office space to keep their bank balance and employees happy.

Yet the distributed workplace is also a technology-led environment, which makes picking the right software crucial to success and survival.

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