Google Data

Posted by Henk ten Bos, Chief Information Officer at Ageas Insurance Company (Asia) Limited

Editor's note: Today’s blogger is Henk ten Bos, Chief Information Officer at Ageas Insurance Company (Asia) Limited, part of the Ageas Group, with nearly 3,000 agents based in Hong Kong. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

As one of Hong Kong’s largest insurance companies, Ageas recognizes the need to constantly deliver the best services to our clients. To compete effectively in our business, our agents need to be able to respond speedily to customer requests. Our email and communication platform is key to our daily business.

As we continued to grow over the years, our previous email and calendaring solution did not keep up with our business growth. We became aware of the need for a more sophisticated tool. So we began to consider a cloud-based application since the agents wanted a way to share and work on documents easily, on top of the simple email and calendar functions.

Henk ten Bos, CIO

To make sure we were on the right track, we consulted Master Concept to see how Google Apps would fit in our business. We also had to ensure that Google Apps could be easily integrated into our current environment and would meet our strict security standards. Our agents were enthusiastic about the move, especially since many of them were already using Gmail for their personal needs. This supported us in the decision to transition to Google’s cloud solution. The transformation was quick and hassle-free, with no data loss or downtime. In fact, the entire migration process, which took place in under a month, went almost unnoticed by agents.

Google Apps for Business has changed the way we work. Our agents are now finding themselves more productive with communication tools such as Gmail and Google Chat. Collaboration has become so much easier as we can now access documents and videos from anywhere and at any time. Concerns about capacity from our own servers are a thing of the past. In fact, we don’t even have to worry about adding capacity with growing agent numbers, as Google offers us easy provisioning and scalability.

Another major advantage is Google’s mobile device management tools. We had been considering a separate solution to manage the growing prevalence of mobile devices that our agents started to use. Now, we don’t have to. Google provides us with basic management and security tools, so our agents are free to access their email, calendar and documents through the device of their choice.

With all of these capabilities now in our hands, we are certain that we have made the right choice with Google. We are now a more efficient organization and with the constant stream of innovation from Google, we are confident that Google Apps will remain relevant and vital to our business in the years to come. Learn more about the story here.