By giving employees access to the technology they use of their own volition, businesses can move faster and innovate.
So said S'ebastien Marotte, VP of enterprise for EMEA at Google, speaking at the Going Google Roadshow, in Johannesburg, yesterday. "We need to work the way we live," he said.
Also speaking at the event, Luke Mckend, country manager, Google SA, emphasised the importance of businesses using the Web effectively to function seamlessly and connect with consumers. With 12 million people online and 25 million data-connected devices in SA, more people are going online daily than are reading newspapers, said Mckend.
He stated that the Internet-based economy in SA is growing faster than any other component of the economy. We are constantly surrounded by multiple devices," said Mckend, "and bandwidth is no longer the barrier it once was."
At the road show, Google demonstrated how it can make the Web work for businesses, by providing them with a broad range of tools, from Google Apps to Google Trends, and connecting brands with consumers. Google's cloud platform allows "increased collaboration, access to information from anywhere with any device, and tools we trust", said Marotte.
Online presence is vital, noted Mckend: "If you have a business and people don't know where you are, do you even exist?" In order to allow small businesses to build a stronger online presence, Google introduced its Woza Online service, which, he added, has seen more than 25 000 businesses create Web sites, greatly adding to their chances of profitability.
With cheaper and faster Internet in SA making it increasingly viable to conduct business online, Mckend said, businesses now need to move "at the speed of the Harlem Shake", and suggested Google's business tools as the best way to do this.
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