Editor's note:
Continuing our “Going Google Everywhere” series, we’re pleased to
welcome Roberto Cavalli. Roberto Cavalli, the globally renowned
Italian fashion house, has chosen Google Apps to consolidate their IT,
boost productivity and support the company’s global workforce in a
more efficient way. Carlo Di Biagio, Cavalli’s Group Chief Operating
Officer, tells their story.We were looking for a solution that would allow us to consolidate all the communication systems currently used by the group into one single system. Having analysed the cost implications and a range of benefits – such as reliability and the 99.9% uptime service level agreements, we selected Google Apps as our new communication and collaboration technology.
We started by adopting Gmail but quickly discovered the power of other applications included as part of Google Apps Premier Edition, such as Sites and Google Video for Business which allow us to easily share videos, pictures and presentations. For people working with product catalogues, picture archives of collections and picture archives for press, accessing those files without overloading their PCs or slowing down their systems while sending large attachments is a great advantage.
The next phase of adoption will use Google Sites to create an intranet to organise, search and share the entire picture archive of collections and catwalk shows within the group. Thanks to Google’s technology, our employees will no longer need to send large images via email or to search for them in archives and folders – the pictures will be stored and organized on customised Google Sites and located within seconds thanks to the integrated Google search.
And, going forward, we will use Google Video for Business to upload catwalk videos, making them instantly available to all of Roberto Cavalli’s boutiques across the world.
So what is the value of all of this? We estimate that by adopting the tools which simplify our work and allow us to cut down on the time we spend on non-critical tasks, such as searching for old e-mails or organizing meetings, we can save up to 40,000 Euros per year in overhead costs and through increased productivity. However, there is another extremely important point we should not forget, even though more difficult to measure: the satisfaction of our employees who appreciate the technology that helps them work better and more creatively.