VTech EU Saves time and streamlines global collaboration with Google Workspace

About the customer

VTech is a global company that manufactures and distributes toys, telecom products, and customised products. It has six branch offices in the EU. The EU branch offices customise products for the local market. The company employs multiple European sales and product development team members who are all supported by a centralised IT department located in the Netherlands. For this new collaboration tool, we support all members around the world, so also in the USA, Canada, Australia.

The Problem / Challenge

With employees spread across the globe, it was crucial for VTech to streamline the collaboration process between the company’s headquarters, which are located in Hong Kong, where new products and product lines are invented, and the offices in Europe where other teams are working on the customisation of the products. 

Even though the projects are done in a similar way across all the global teams by using the same document templates, the company was still using documents individually and sending files back and forth over email conversations. This approach made it difficult to get 1 single source of truth that is available in real-time to all team members. 

The Goal 

The main goal was to save time and work on the same documents at the same location in a centralised way, which would enable colleagues to collaborate more efficiently.

VTech needed to find a collaboration tool that would make it easier for teams to work together on the same projects in which they develop and customise projects locally. 

The Solution

After an investigation period, in which different options were compared, VTech chose Google Workspace. 

VTech partnered with Devoteam G Cloud to implement Google Workspace to achieve its goals. Google Workspace, with Google Drive and Google Sheets, became the centralised place for teams to work together. All offices globally were included, with the Hong Kong team being the largest. The solution provides the teams with real-time collaboration.

Next to a better user experience, Google Workspace also offered the possibility to set up the right security rules and restrictions, in line with the corporate guidelines.

The Methodology

Devoteam G Cloud helped implement Google Workspace. With a “first time right” approach in mind, the main players in the global teams were included from the start to discuss the functions they were looking for. This approach ensured involvement from the people who would be using the solution and helped ensure that the IT department was not solely responsible for finding the best solution.

In addition to defining this new way of working, the IT team and Devoteam G Cloud collaborated to devise a plan for meeting security standards. Because many projects are not yet launched on the market, confidentiality was very important. This resulted in the set up of Conditional Aware Access, in this case a set of data security rules including specific admin login privileges as well as rules on IP restrictions. 

The Result

The solution was successful for VTech, saving a lot of time, making the way of working much more efficient than the traditional way. The collaboration process was centralised, and everyone could access the same documents from the same location, making collaboration easier. The company experienced no complaints about the tooling. The project was completed at the end of 2022, and the results were remarkable.