Market Perspectives

The ever-evolving hybrid workforce requires cloud communication tools that meet the needs of digital businesses. This transition has forced organizations to reevaluate existing digital communication services to ensure they meet the demands of today’s workers and customers.

Google Workspace, formerly known as G Suite, is a collection of communication and collaboration applications developed by Google that adds options to its free suite of applications. For instance, Gmail now includes Google Chat, Google Spaces and Google Meet, providing quick, advertisement-free access to communication features as well as a custom domain for email addresses. Meet allows up to 500 participants in a meeting, using a U.S. or international phone number. It also includes Jamboard, a digital whiteboard that can be accessed from any device during and after a meeting. Chat allows workers to communicate with one or more users and share files using Google Drive. In Spaces, users can create a discussion thread that is searchable across an organization.

Workspace includes familiar collaboration tools such as Docs, Sheets and Slides that accommodate Microsoft Office files. Other options include a notes application, website builder and survey builder. Third-party applications can be added and used as bots to automate tasks in Chat and Spaces.

Several third-party applications such as DocuSign and RingCentral can be integrated into Workspace. Google Voice is available as an add-on service that offers phone numbers to users. It blocks spam calls and transcribes voicemails using Google AI.

G Suite was renovated into Google Workspace to provide an integrated experience with applications that workers are accustomed to using. By assimilating familiar applications into one service, Google provides a convenient, unified experience for users.

Fluctuations in the corporate work environment brought on by the pandemic encouraged vendors like Google to provide greater digital support for the workforce. Ventana Research asserts that through 2024, a new breed of digital communication platform will evolve from today’s UCaaS technology to meet contemporary business requirements.

Many organizations using Google complement the offering with Slack for collaboration and Zoom for meetings, creating a collection of vendors and products. Organizations should assess Google Workspace’s collaborative and meeting requirements and determine if these applications fulfill worker expectations or require a more robust and unified approach.

Google Workspace provides choices in its offering to meet the simple needs of any organization. Google provides a variety of security features to avoid breaches and protect sensitive data. Administrators can enforce two-step verification as well as a security key, which is a physical key users can insert into their computer, then tap on to log-in to designated websites. Endpoint Management is also provided by default to protect organizational data on personal devices, allowing workers to use their personal device for productivity.

In addition to Workspace, Google also offers Google Cloud and Chrome Enterprise for cloud computing. With the demand for digital communication software in the workplace, Google takes advantage of its familiar suite of applications for documents, presentations and sheets, and provides a set of unified communication and collaboration tools as simple extensions.

Google is a significant technology provider in cloud computing, offering applications for productivity and communications. Advancing its depth in digital communication will require Google to assess the competitiveness of its collaborative and meeting support and determine if these applications fulfill corporate and worker expectations. Likewise, organizations already invested in using Google for its Workspace suite of applications should compare it to other technology providers that have a more universal approach to collaborating and communicating across digital channels. The market for digital communication is changing rapidly, and it is critical for every organization to embrace simple yet sophisticated support for the entire workforce – including customers and partners.