Moving to Google Workspace for easier and more effective collaboration
About Mantel Group
Mantel Group is a technology consulting firm and the parent company of Kasna, which is Australia’s premier Google solutions partner. Mantel Group is determined to establish itself as a technology pioneer across Australia and New Zealand, engaging the market with the most innovative and unique solutions in the technology services industry.
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Contact usMantel Group makes client collaboration easier and more convenient at a lower cost, thanks to Google Workspace and Google Cloud
Google Cloud results
- Achieving 21.72% increase in net profit over a year
- 120 staff migrated to Google Workspace within a week, achieving a 99% success rate
- Estimated cost savings of AUD$45,000 on teleconferencing with Calendar and Google Meet over a year
Supports easy and streamlined workplace transformation
Established in 2017, Mantel Group was formed by senior technology executives and industry experts, and has four business sub-units: digital services consultancy DigIO, data science company Eliiza, cloud consultancy CMD, and Kasna, which is a Google solutions partner that helps clients serve their customers better by building differentiated solutions.
Kasna follows the latest developments in technology and harnesses vast domain expertise to provide customers with dependable advice and execution capabilities. It provides services across Google Cloud, marketing technology, and workplace transformation.
Even with the best technology, execution is critical to realizing the potential of cloud and innovation. “We help our clients deploy complex cloud environments at speed, transforming their applications and delivery capabilities. We also enable clients to produce high-quality software experiences quickly at reduced cost and risk,” Simon Poulton, CEO at Kasna says.
As a new startup, a key challenge that Mantel faces is getting internal work processes sorted while the company is busy recruiting new talent. “We’re growing very quickly, with a large number of colleagues joining us over the past three months, so it’s a dynamic situation. We need to get staff equipped and help them be productive within a short period of time. The less time we spend on internal tasks, the more we can focus on our clients,” Simon explains.
Smooth and quick migration to Google Workspace
Simon believes that as big companies in Australia transform to remain competitive, there’s a huge opportunity in the consulting market for businesses like his to provide unique advice on business strategy.
Workplace transformation is another main focus for Mantel. The company ran its work processes on various platforms before migrating to Google Workspace. “If we were still using old methodologies, it would be difficult for us to effectively advise our clients. By upgrading the way we work as a company, we’re improving the way we help our clients,” says Simon.
In April 2019, the company began migrating to Google Workspace, and 120 staff switched to using Calendar, Docs, Drive, Forms, Gmail, Google Meet, Sheets, and Slides within a week. Oliver Heycoop, IT Support Engineer at Mantel Group says, “Ahead of the migration, we spent two weeks on testing, making sure that the migration process would be a smooth one. During the testing period, we created a checklist of what needed to be achieved. So that’s how we achieved such a high success rate of migration.” Another reason why it was a seamless process for Mantel was a manageable number of staff being migrated and the fact that 80% of the employees were already familiar with Google Workspace so they didn’t need training. “We only needed to conduct training for some staff; the need for tutorials or other guidance was a lot less than we expected,” Oliver adds.
“If we were still using old methodologies, it would be difficult for us to effectively advise our clients. By upgrading the way we work as a company, we’re improving the way we help our clients.”
—Simon Poulton, CEO, KasnaCollaborating effectively and more affordably with Google Meet
As a consulting company, Mantel requires a lot of collaboration between staff and clients. Simon says, “Migrating to Google Workspace has helped us increase collaboration between staff and clients, which is crucial in developing effective business strategies. It’s helped us work with a new generation that is redefining the business paradigm. Having a smart workplace where we can collaborate effectively is key to our continued growth.”
Before switching to Calendar, Google Meet, and Google Meet hardware, employees were using a variety of teleconferencing software and hardware to set up meetings. “It was a tough challenge to align with staff and clients using different conferencing software, and some time was wasted waiting for everyone to be connected,” explains Simon. “Now, when we book a meeting with Calendar, it automatically reflects in Meet, and everyone can access the conference details and dial in from their meeting rooms. It’s convenient and saves a lot of time.” Simon estimates savings of AUD$45,000 over a year thanks to the time saved by scheduling dial-in conferences via Meet.
“Now, when we book a meeting with Calendar, it automatically reflects in Google Meet, and everyone can access the conferencing details and dial in from their meeting rooms. It’s convenient and saves a lot of time."
—Simon Poulton, CEO, KasnaSwitching to Google Meet also delivers savings in terms of licensing costs and travel expenses. There were 40 staff using another teleconferencing software before the migration to Google Workspace, and the company spent AUD$10,000 over a year on licensing. Now the company expects that it will be able to have 20% more of its staff set up for conferencing over Meet.
As for travel expenses, Mantel estimates a reduction of AUD$30,000 over the year due to less frequent need for domestic air travel between Sydney and Melbourne. Consultants are now using Google Meet to easily and smoothly close the distance between them and their clients
Streamlined document management with Docs
Virtual management of documents plays a big part in the collaboration process, especially in a technology consultancy like Mantel. “Managing documents for clients can be a challenge when there are multiple versions of a document floating around,” explains Simon. “For a consultancy like us that has a number of important clients, we need to be careful when it comes to documents and ensure that our clients always receive the correct information.”
One of the benefits that Mantel sees about collaborating through Google Workspace is that both consultants and clients can work on developing ideas before the first meeting. Simon says, “In the old way of working, we’d come up with ideas but had to book a meeting before we could get everyone together and get the discussions going. Then we’d come back to the office, produce a list of follow-up actions, and schedule another meeting two weeks later.”
With Google Workspace, these processes are streamlined and collaboration can start before the meeting. “I can create a proposal using Docs and share this with others directly instead of writing an email with an attachment that needs to be downloaded. As we can all access and edit the same document at the same time, this eliminates the hassle of having to go through different emails to compile the various comments. Google Workspace manages version control automatically so we don’t need to worry about it.” Simon adds that the company saves around AUD$12,500 a year on document management.
Relying on Google Workspace for simple yet secure document access
Besides cost and time savings, Mantel also sees an improvement in terms of security after moving to Google Workspace.
Oliver says, “We like the simplicity of security using Google, because with one secure user ID we can manage everything: from Google Workspace access to using Google Cloud or BigQuery. Everything is stored in the Drive, from client contracts to our employees’ data. To protect this information, we can choose to only give access to key personnel for confidential documents, and if an employee leaves, we still have access to all confidential documents that they have created.”
Moving forward, Mantel will continue to leverage the advantages of Google Workspace to help teams collaborate and better serve their customers through innovative ways of working. The company is also exploring solutions from Google Cloud that will help to support its future growth. “We’re currently experimenting with using BigQuery,” shares Simon. “We think it could be invaluable for enabling us to make more data-driven decisions as the business grows. As for Google Workspace, we are planning to use Jamboard to help our Sydney and Melbourne design functions collaborate in real time.”
“Migrating to Google Workspace has helped us increase collaboration between staff and clients, which is crucial in developing effective business strategies. It’s helped us work with a new generation that is redefining the business paradigm.”
—Simon Poulton, CEO, KasnaTell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Mantel Group
Mantel Group is a technology consulting firm and the parent company of Kasna, which is Australia’s premier Google solutions partner. Mantel Group is determined to establish itself as a technology pioneer across Australia and New Zealand, engaging the market with the most innovative and unique solutions in the technology services industry.