Jasco moves to Google Apps – saves costs, empowers the business
6 June 2016
As an organisation that delivers end-to-end Information Communication Technology (ICT) solutions to its customers, it is important for the Jasco Group to leverage technology to improve its own efficiencies, enhance performance, heighten competitiveness and cut costs. Jasco turned to Grove Group, a premier Google Apps Partner, to assist them to move to Google Apps for Work across the organisation. Although recently implemented, Jasco is already realising significant savings on software licences, desktop devices, backups and archiving, plus significantly reduced data centre and support costs.
“It’s true that change is the only constant and it’s important for businesses to keep abreast of change to avoid becoming irrelevant in today’s business world. As a smart technology and solutions partner known for delivering converged ICT offerings for carriers and enterprises across the telecoms, communications, IT infrastructure, security and fire sectors, it made strategic sense for us to adopt leading technology and integrate this into our portfolio,” says Paul Fick, Chief Technology Officer for Jasco Group, Enterprise.
Moving into the future
“We chose Google as our solution suite as it offers us the flexibility and affordability that has become the norm today. For example, with a 12-month licensing cycle, we have the ability to scale up or down, and given the weakness of our currency, the much lower dollar cost was very attractive. Our decision simply makes good business sense,” Fick notes.
Aside from the attraction of massive savings, Jasco decided to move to a cloud-based solution instead of expanding internal data centres and back-end systems for internal operations. Furthermore, it will provide Jasco with the opportunity to showcase Google Apps’ capabilities and benefits in a real, working environment.
“As many of our people use Google Apps every day in their personal lives, the move is a natural progression that requires no specific architecture or hardware to implement. Across the organisation we are now using Google Sheets and Docs to collaborate on projects and tasks. We’ll be using Google Slides in our boardrooms and leveraging off the fact that, for whatever we need, there’s a Google app available,” Fick explains.
Denis Fry, Director of Cloud & Operations at Grove Group, shares his insights on the partnership with Jasco: “It is always exciting to work with companies that have a passion for technology, that want to work in the ‘now’ and not in the ‘then’ era. Jasco is certainly such an organisation. The biggest challenge that we faced in executing the implementation project was the urgency with which the new service had to be delivered. The required services had to be deployed to all Jasco’s users in all its locations internationally in under eight weeks. The combined team, consisting of Jasco’s IT team and Grove’s experienced resources in various locations, deployed the required services within the given timelines, meeting their tight deadline.”
Empowering the organisation
The deployment included on-site management and training yet the learning curve was not steep, as most people are familiar with the Google Mail interface from personal experience. Jasco reported that people were excited about going the Google route once they realised that they would have access to data and the applications from anywhere. Employees are now able to collaborate on web-based documents in their browsers, and can make changes that other authorised users can see in real-time. By having data in the cloud, email attachment round-trips are eliminated and this reduces frustrations for teams who need to work together efficiently.
“From an IT perspective, we’ll be able to spend more time innovating, and less time keeping the lights on and the software and hardware updated. As Google launches new features, users will automatically get these improvements when the browser is refreshed,” adds Fick.
Mobile applications are also updated in the background, which is a distinct benefit for us as with traditional technology and ‘software plus services’, client software can hinder innovation. Once back-end systems can support new features, even then users don’t benefit from new functionality in those environments until the software on their computers and mobile phones have been upgraded, which can be a labour intensive exercise.
“We also look forward to faster collaboration and greater cooperation across teams and offices,” Fick concludes.
About the Jasco Group
Jasco delivers end-to-end best-of-breed solutions across the entire ICT value chain. Our services include solution design, business consulting, project management and logistics to manage the supply, installation and commissioning of solutions; and professional services to provide integration and customisation of solutions; managed services, support and maintenance.
Jasco’s operating divisions, namely Intelligent Technologies, Enterprise, Carriers and Electrical Manufacturers deliver a range of solutions and services. Intelligent Technologies delivers broadcast, power, data centres and Property Technology Management (PTM) solutions as well as Energy Optimisation and Co-location services, a carrier-neutral co-location telecommunications hub where the network infrastructure serves multiple service providers. The Carrier business provides solutions and components for access and transmission networks as well as hi-sites. The Enterprise business is a specialist in multiple disciplines across numerous solutions, including business communications, contact centres, IT Infrastructure, surveillance and access control, as well as, fire detection and prevention solutions to name but a few. Electrical Manufacturers delivers contract manufacturing of white goods.
The Jasco Group has a national footprint with offices in Gauteng, Western Cape, Free State, Eastern Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal. Other than South Africa, the organisation features an office in Kenya to service the East Africa region. It also trades in many sub-Saharan African countries, with a special focus on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.
About Grove Group:
Grove is a technology company helping our customers solve business problems through the innovative use of technology. We has been doing this since 2005 as a leading provider of agile and flexible solutions that enable organisations to transform how they operate whilst accelerating innovation. Our solutions help clients to capitalise on the benefits of cloud computing, mobility and big data analytics whilst maximising the investments in their current solutions.
