Hangout On Air: Lessons from a retail CIO on moving to the cloud with ease

Posted by Meghdutt Brahmachari, Product Marketing Manager, Google Enterprise


Change is never easy, but when a business has tens of thousands of employees in locations around the world, bringing in new technology can be very disruptive. In this week’s Hangout On Air for retailers, Christine Atkins, former CIO of global grocery retailer Ahold, explains why moving to the cloud offers the best chance to adopt faster, flexible business solutions without implementation headaches.

Come to the Hangout On Air this Thursday, October 3, at 10 a.m. PT, to hear Atkins talk about her experience guiding Ahold to go Google. Ahold switched from an aging and inflexible legacy system for email and collaboration to Google Apps. As Atkins, now a principal at Atkins & Cameron Consulting LLC, explains, the shift to Google Apps and the cloud led to a 75% decrease in costs, plus a no-hitches implementation and higher productivity. Atkins and Bill Hippenmeyer, director of Google Apps for Business Strategy, will talk about these retail challenges:

• What tools does a distributed workforce need to be successful?
• How do you choose technology that meets the expectations of millennials?
• How do you manage the culture changes that come with technology innovation?

If you missed our previous Hangout On Air with Interactions Marketing and Tableau Software on mining insights from Big Data, you can view it here.

RSVP for the Christine Atkins Hangout On Air, and take part in the Q&A by posting your questions on Google+ or Twitter using the hashtag #GoneGoogle.