Ireland's Belle and Rollo goes Google
Editor’s note: Over 3 million businesses have adopted Google Apps . Today we’ll hear from Michael Wejchert, IT manager of Belle and Rollo, ...
https://iskablogs.blogspot.com/2010/11/ireland-belle-and-rollo-goes-google.html
Editor’s note: Over 3 million businesses have adopted Google Apps. Today we’ll hear from Michael Wejchert, IT manager of Belle and Rollo, which was founded by his wife Carla Wejchert. To learn more about other organizations that have gone Google and share your story, visit our community map or test drive life in the cloud with the Go Google cloud calculator.
Belle and Rollo is an Ireland-based online children's lifestyle store offering a unique and eclectic range of items for children and families. It opened in Autumn 2010 and uses Google Apps as the heart of its communication infrastructure.
When we embarked on the path to open our store in January 2010, I was in the position of creating a business from the ground up and making critical decisions for solutions that would help us run an effective and efficient business.
I had come from a business with over 2,000 users on a Microsoft Exchange® system and was familiar with the various issues of cost, maintenance and reliability that affected our day to day communications systems. As a small start-up business, I strongly wanted to avoid the problems I had previously witnessed. We needed to have rock solid reliability but did not want to have the added complexity of running our own email hardware and the added expense of maintenance costs.
From my personal experience using Gmail and Google Docs I felt that a cloud solution would be very suitable for our needs. We needed to have accounts covering email, calendar and contacts that were accessible from anywhere, especially when working from mobile devices. Increasing the number of users quickly is also important for us as our business grows. I researched Google Apps further and contacted Baker Security & Networks - a Google Apps Authorized Reseller - who talked me through the various functionality features which lead to our decision to use Google Apps. They also recommended Irish mobile network 3 who supplied us with Android handsets to allow us to be fully connected to Google Apps when we were away from the office.
After more than six months running Google Apps, I continue to be impressed. As I spend the majority of my time on the road, the Android integration with Google services has been invaluable. Syncing multiple accounts for email, contacts and calendars has allowed me to respond to suppliers immediately and process customer queries and action orders efficiently. Once back in the office (or home) everything is in place and just as easy to access due to the Cloud.
Google Docs has given us a central hub for data creation and storage, with flexible and secure sharing settings. We have recently started to use it to streamline our invoicing process - we can generate invoices from any PC and then store them in the Cloud with Google Docs - removing the problem of being tied to a specific person, location or computer. As we work from various places - office, home office, on the road - it’s very helpful to have a central data store for the company. We have found the collaborative nature of Google Docs a very natural way of working over distance.
I am looking forward to seeing our company grow, safe in the knowledge that our Google Apps system will grow hand in hand with us, and without any of the usual technology growing pains!
Belle and Rollo is an Ireland-based online children's lifestyle store offering a unique and eclectic range of items for children and families. It opened in Autumn 2010 and uses Google Apps as the heart of its communication infrastructure.
When we embarked on the path to open our store in January 2010, I was in the position of creating a business from the ground up and making critical decisions for solutions that would help us run an effective and efficient business.
I had come from a business with over 2,000 users on a Microsoft Exchange® system and was familiar with the various issues of cost, maintenance and reliability that affected our day to day communications systems. As a small start-up business, I strongly wanted to avoid the problems I had previously witnessed. We needed to have rock solid reliability but did not want to have the added complexity of running our own email hardware and the added expense of maintenance costs.
From my personal experience using Gmail and Google Docs I felt that a cloud solution would be very suitable for our needs. We needed to have accounts covering email, calendar and contacts that were accessible from anywhere, especially when working from mobile devices. Increasing the number of users quickly is also important for us as our business grows. I researched Google Apps further and contacted Baker Security & Networks - a Google Apps Authorized Reseller - who talked me through the various functionality features which lead to our decision to use Google Apps. They also recommended Irish mobile network 3 who supplied us with Android handsets to allow us to be fully connected to Google Apps when we were away from the office.
After more than six months running Google Apps, I continue to be impressed. As I spend the majority of my time on the road, the Android integration with Google services has been invaluable. Syncing multiple accounts for email, contacts and calendars has allowed me to respond to suppliers immediately and process customer queries and action orders efficiently. Once back in the office (or home) everything is in place and just as easy to access due to the Cloud.
Google Docs has given us a central hub for data creation and storage, with flexible and secure sharing settings. We have recently started to use it to streamline our invoicing process - we can generate invoices from any PC and then store them in the Cloud with Google Docs - removing the problem of being tied to a specific person, location or computer. As we work from various places - office, home office, on the road - it’s very helpful to have a central data store for the company. We have found the collaborative nature of Google Docs a very natural way of working over distance.
I am looking forward to seeing our company grow, safe in the knowledge that our Google Apps system will grow hand in hand with us, and without any of the usual technology growing pains!
