The Case for Google Apps

The Compelling Case for Google Apps

Forrester Study shows Google Apps Drives IT Cost Savings And Key Collaboration Benefits In May 2010, Forrester Consulting examined the total economic impact and expected return on investment (ROI) enterprises can realise by adopting Google Apps having previously managed a traditional on-premise messaging and collaboration environment. It found that Google Apps offered a risk-adjusted ROI of 307% and payback within 7 months. The study provides readers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial benefits of switching from legacy email and productivity solutions to Google Apps. Forrester’s interviews and subsequent financial analysis identified several key takeaways for organisations migrating to a cloud-based messaging and collaboration environment:
The switch to Google Apps was usually driven by replacing or augmenting an existing email solution. However, Forrester saw a growing number of cases where organisations chose Google Apps for collaboration then migrated to the messaging platform.

93% of respondents saw positive, tangible IT and end user impacts that drove ROI. End users familiar with cloud-based personal email transitioned more smoothly to using Google Apps at work.

End user productivity gains were even greater than IT cost savings. End users were able to use gmail more efficiently than their previous email solution and collaborate more effectively with Google Docs and Google Sites than with traditional software.

IT-impact benefits

These included the cost savings resulting from moving an organisation’s on-premise messaging and collaboration environment to a Google cloud-based architecture.

Cost savings included reduced spend on licenses and infrastructure.
Cost savings included reduced IT administrator time spent on system maintenance, upgrades, patching etc.

Organisations noted specific annual cost savings versus their previous environment of between 38% and 56%.
End-user-impact benefits
These included specific end-user benefits around the migration of an organisation’s messaging and collaboration environment to Google Apps.

Messaging-specific benefits. These included productivity gains around email search, spam filtering, archiving, organisation of email, as well as improved response time within the messaging environment.
Collaboration-specific benefits. These included improved efficiency in terms of sharing and editing documents across teams and within teams, the ability to incorporate feedback more quickly, more efficient face-to-face and virtual meetings, as well pushing more timely and relevant information to distributed teams.
Enabled-flexibility benefits. These included the ability to achieve secondary benefits from the initial investment in Google Apps

Appsbroker Consulting Ltd, Appsbroker House, Swindon, Wiltshire, SN1 3EP