Over the past few years, Google has launched a wide variety of cloud tools as part of its G Suite. These tools provide cloud storage integrated with services like collaborative document editing, email, text and video chat. You may already use a lot of these tools and know about some benefits of G Suite, like the cloud storage space and automatic attachment storage.
What you may not know is that these tools can be just as effective for businesses as they are for individuals. Google even offers special G suite features for companies, as well as several paid plans that provide further upgrades.
Here are some of the top benefits of G Suite for businesses.
1. Cloud Storage
The cloud storage that G Suite can offer companies is probably one of its biggest advantages. You can store documents and files of all kinds and have access to them no matter where you are or what device you’re using. All you need is access to your business’s Google account.
Your company will get at least 30 GB of storage with the Basic plan. You can also get unlimited storage with more advanced programs, so long as you have more than five active users.
2. Business Calendaring
Business accounts can use G Suite’s calendar tool companywide. With this tool, you can create events and make notices, then share your calendar with other team members as needed so everyone can stay on the same page. You can also create team and group calendars so certain events — like management meetings or team-building exercises — will only be visible to relevant employees.
Plus, you’ll also get to take advantage of one of the benefits of G Suite — the ability to automatically add events from your email to your calendar.
3. Corporate Communication Tools
Another one of the benefits of G Suite is the advanced corporate communication tools the service can provide. For example, Gmail for business can allow you to easily store documents attached to emails on your company’s Google Drive. With G Suite, you’ll also get improved access to Google Meet’s video chatting features — especially important when you have remote staff or team members working from home.
4. Recordable Google Meetings
With the Enterprise plan, you can record and store Hangouts Meet meetings in your Google Drive.
This feature will come in handy if you want to record important meeting information. For example, you can host a seminar and allow those who can’t attend the live version to still benefit from the information your team presented.
Upgrading to Enterprise will also boost the maximum amount of meeting participants from 20 or 25 with Basic or Business to 30.
5. Secure Messaging
G Suite administrators can set up rules that ensure outgoing messages are encrypted, so communications between team members are kept as secure as possible. These rules can make sure notes containing sensitive business information won’t be intercepted by third parties.
6. Collaborative Document Editing
Another one of the benefits of G Suite is its ability to allow multiple users to work on the same set of documents together using the cloud. G Suite apps like Documents and Sheets also include features that make collaboration easier — like a notes mode that allows users to suggest changes, rather than make alterations directly.
With these features, your team can collaborate on one document without having to pass the file back and forth for revisions or edits.
7. Administrative Features
Advanced admin features are also some of the benefits of G Suite. With an Enterprise plan, you’ll gain access to an administration console that lets you quickly manage permissions for different accounts and help you handle security issues.
8. Access Transparency and Cloud Identity
With Enterprise, you’ll also gain access to G Suite’s Access Transparency and Cloud identity features.
Through the Access Transparency log in the admin console, you can see a full report of all actions taken by internal staff. They are organized by type, date, user and affected resource, allowing you to track who is accessing and modifying information using accounts associated with your business.
The Cloud Identity feature helps you manage user access to resources and provide accounts to users who only need certain G Suite services.
9. Advanced Data-Loss Prevention
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is another one of the benefits of G Suite. This feature helps you keep sensitive information safe by automatically scanning files hosted on Google Drive. The DLP feature can look for files that contain confidential information, like bank account details or Social Security numbers, and flag them. You can then set up rules that automatically notify admins when these files are shared, and even block them from going to users outside of your organization.
The feature can also automatically warn someone if they attempt to store sensitive information or send it with an email.
10. Access to the G Suite Marketplace
Using G Suite for your business’s cloud storage will also provide you with access to the G Suite Marketplace. It hosts third-party apps that further extend the benefits of G Suite. These apps can provide features like improved table customization or boost the notifications that are sent when a user fills out a Google Form.
11. Multifactor Authentication
G Suite also supports two-factor authentication, which can help keep your business’s accounts and storage access secure. If you try to access your account from a new location, you’ll need to provide an additional factor of authentication. This extra factor — often a code sent to a phone that needs to be entered before someone can log in — helps ensure that the user accessing an account is who they claim to be.
Using Google Suite for Your Business
Google’s G Suite tools can provide great cloud-based functionality. Using G Suite for your company will gain you access to incredible features. Among them are collaborative editing, multiple business calendars, and recordable video meetings.
You’ll also have access to other benefits of G Suite — like an access log and multi-factor authentication — that can help you manage access to business storage and keep confidential information safe.
About The Author
Eleanor Hecks is the Editor-in-Chief of Designerly Magazine, an online publication dedicated to providing in-depth content from the design and marketing industries. When she's not designing or writing code, you can find her exploring the outdoors with her husband and dog in their RV, burning calories at a local Zumba class, or curled up with a good book with her cats Gem and Cali.
You can find more of Eleanor's work at www.eleanorhecks.com.
I have used Google’s G Suite tools for my business and its good options for your business. It has built-in cloud-based functionality