The Total Economic Impact of Google Workspace
The Total Economic Impact of Google Workspace
Commissioned By Google
January 2019
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Improved security savings: Interviewed organizations also deployed Google Workspace because of
Google’s approach to security. Customers mentioned that Google
$7.6 million Workspace includes security tools designed to empower IT administrators
and protects employees from spam, malware, and phishing attacks.
Additionally, customers recognized the benefits of leveraging Google’s
global infrastructure and scale which provides a highly secure environment
that shields organizations from cybersecurity threats.
Forrester developed a composite organization based on data gathered
from the customer interviews to reflect the total economic impact that
Google Workspace could have on an organization. The composite
organization is representative of the organizations that Forrester
interviewed and is used to present the aggregate financial analysis in this
study. All values are reported in risk-adjusted three-year present value
(PV) unless otherwise indicated.
1|
Key Financial Findings
Quantified benefits. The following benefits reflect the financial analysis
associated with the composite organization.
› Top-line revenue growth leading to $12.9 million in additional
bottom-line profit through Google Workspace transformation.
ROI
Interviewed organizations noted that the migration to Google Workspace
331% transformed the way their employees worked. Google Workspace
enabled better collaboration across teams, gave workers better access
to data to inform decision making, and sparked a cultural change toward
embracing innovation. Organizations reported upticks in internal,
Benefits PV employee-led initiatives that accelerated the business and ultimately had
a positive impact to their bottom lines.
$55.7 million
› Increased employee efficiency and productivity totaling $22.1
million. Interviewed organizations described efficiency gains related to
Google Workspace’s robust set of collaboration tools and features.
Employees were able to collaborate more effectively with real-time
NPV editing in Docs, Slides, Sheets, and other tools, contributing feedback
$42.8 million from anywhere on any device. The ease of collaboration also led to a
reduction in the number and length of meetings, allowing employees to
stay focused on active work. Additionally, in Google Workspace, all
software and security updates are processed automatically so workers
no longer experienced lengthy and inconvenient disruptions to keep
Payback devices and hardware up to date.
< 12 months
› IT productivity and efficiency gains totaling $1.6 million. Interviewed
organizations described tactical benefits related to IT productivity and
efficiency. IT operators realized efficiency gains because update and
patching activities were automatically pushed to all devices, no longer
requiring IT to implement or monitor patches and updates. Users’
familiarity with Google Workspace from using the suite in their personal
lives, coupled with the intuitive design of the tools, led to a decrease in
on-demand IT and help desk tickets, freeing up additional time for IT to
focus on value-adding initiatives.
› Reduced security incident remediation costs from email malware
and exploits totaling $5.2 million. Interviewed organizations noted that
Gmail’s built-in spam, malware, and phishing filter was more effective
than their legacy third-party email filters. This significantly reduced the
total number of malicious emails received by employee inboxes, which
reduced the number of malware infections requiring remediation.
› Reduced risk and cost of a data breach totaling $2.4 million.
Interviewed organizations noted that moving to Google Workspace
allowed them to have an integrated full security stack for their
collaboration tools. Having multiple third-party security vendors with their
legacy solutions made it more difficult to manage and hampered visibility
into their security environments. Moving to Google Workspace ultimately
improved their security posture and thus reduced the likelihood of a data
breach.
› Reduced Capex and opex totaling $11.6 million in bottom-line
savings. Organizations noted that they have reduced capital and
operating expenses as a result of the Google Workspace investment.
Savings came from several areas, such as reduced total number of
servers and hardware units, reduced cost in maintaining servers and
hardware, reduced corporate travel, and reduced legacy IT software
license costs.
2|
Costs. The following costs reflect the financial analysis associated with
the composite organization.
› Subscription costs totaling $9.4 million. Interviewed organizations
noted subscription costs, both for Google Workspace and for a single
sign-on (SSO) solution to allow ease of access to their cloud tools for
employees.
› Implementation and ongoing support costs totaling $3.5 million.
Interviewed organizations described internal implementation costs,
training, ongoing support, and professional services.
Forrester's interviews with eight existing Google Workspace customers,
and the subsequent financial analysis, found that a composite organization
experienced benefits of $55.7 million over three years, and costs of $12.9
million. This results in a net present value (NPV) of $42.8 million and an
ROI of 331%.
$55.7 million
Reduced security
remediation costs:
$5.2M three-year total
benefits PV
DUE DILIGENCE
Interviewed Google stakeholders and Forrester analysts to gather data
relative to Google Workspace.
CUSTOMER INTERVIEWS
Interviewed eight organizations using Google Workspace to obtain data
with respect to costs, benefits, and risks.
COMPOSITE ORGANIZATION
Designed a composite organization based on characteristics of the
interviewed organizations.
CASE STUDY
Employed four fundamental elements of TEI in modeling Google
Workspace’s impact: benefits, costs, flexibility, and risks. Given the
increasing sophistication that enterprises have regarding ROI analyses
related to IT investments, Forrester’s TEI methodology serves to provide a
complete picture of the total economic impact of purchase decisions.
Please see Appendix A for additional information on the TEI methodology.
DISCLOSURES
Forrester makes no assumptions as to the potential ROI that other organizations will receive.
Forrester strongly advises that readers use their own estimates within the framework provided
in the report to determine the appropriateness of an investment in Google Workspace.
Google reviewed and provided feedback to Forrester, but Forrester maintains editorial control
over the study and its findings and does not accept changes to the study that contradict
Forrester’s findings or obscure the meaning of the study.
Google provided the customer names for the interviews but did not participate in the interviews.
4|
The Google Workspace Customer Journey
BEFORE AND AFTER THE GOOGLE WORKSPACE INVESTMENT
Interviewed Organizations
For this study, Forrester conducted eight interviews with Google
Workspace customers. Interviewed customers include the following:
5|
› Improving their overall security stack. Security leaders realize that
the threats to their organizations are constantly evolving, making it
increasingly difficult to keep all of their assets secure. In light of this
landscape, the organizations were looking for security-focused vendors “We’ve improved productivity
and partners to bolster the overall security of their organizations and for our IT team. They use that
mitigate as much risk as possible. Organizations also noted challenges extra time to work on tools that
in managing and integrating several disparate third-party security improve productivity for our
solutions to provide overall secure environments. organization. Our productivity
improvements are
compounding.”
IT director, CPG industry
Why Google Workspace?
Interviewed organizations chose Google Workspace to address their
challenges for several reasons:
› Google Workspace represents a bold transformation and sends a
message to employees. By partnering with Google, organizations
signaled to their employees, and to the market, that they are taking
strides to innovate and modernize their businesses. An IT director in
the CPG industry told Forrester: “Google’s name is synonymous with
innovation. It sends a message to our employees that we’re serious
about changing the way we do business.”
› Google Workspace is a cloud-native solution. Organizations cited
some of the advantages of a cloud-native solution in their decisions to
move to Google Workspace. These included not adding additional on-
“We needed to fundamentally
premises infrastructure and to remove some where possible; the
change in order to survive. A
increased security from storing data in the cloud, rather than housing
lightbulb went off with Google
all data in the same place; and the ability for employees to access
Workspace being that lightning
company data, applications, and other resources from anywhere on
any device. An IT director in the electronics manufacturing industry rod for our team members to
said, “Cloud is the future, and Google Workspace is the most start to see — we’re serious
comprehensive suite of collaborative cloud tools.” about transforming as an
organization, and this is how
› Google Workspace has built-in security. Organizations recognized we’ll survive in the financial
the increased need and pressure to secure company data, as well as services space going forward.”
the data of their customers and partners. Google Workspace’s built-in
security features (such as advanced anti-phishing, security center, SVP of technology, financial
mobile management, etc.) give admins simpler, more streamlined ways services industry
to manage users, control devices, ensure compliance, and keep data
secure. All of these features are included with Google Workspace at no
additional cost, allowing organizations to sunset redundant third-party
services. An SVP of technology in the automotive services industry
stated: “Google Workspace is built from the ground up around security.
That’s something we really like about Google.”
6|
Key Results With Google Workspace
The interviews revealed that the investment in Google Workspace
addressed the challenges interviewees were facing and provided
additional benefits:
› Increased revenue leading to additional bottom-line profit due to
Google Workspace. Organizations credited Google Workspace with “Google’s name is synonymous
fundamentally changing the way their employees work. This with innovation. It sends a
manifested into cultural shifts toward innovation resulting in employees message to our employees
feeling empowered to rethink established processes and improve the that we’re serious about
business. A chief of digital transformation in the financial services changing the way we do
industry told Forrester: “Migrating to Google Workspace has enabled business.”
hundreds of initiatives in our organization. One of these initiatives has IT director, CPG industry
directly contributed to us achieving record sales year over year, and
this is before even taking into consideration the productivity
improvements we see from the collaboration tools.”
› Improvements in end user and IT productivity. Through Google
Workspace’s robust set of collaboration tools and features, employees
across organizations were able to collaborate better, streamline
workflows, and perform work how, when, and where they were most
productive. Additionally, familiarity with Google products resulted in a “And again, I can’t reiterate
decrease in on-demand IT and help desk tickets. An SVP of enough, the biggest benefit we
technology in the automotive services industry said: “The impact on found is I was paying $300K
productivity and collaboration has been very good. People are realizing for an email spam filter before,
they can share information and collaborate across our 150 locations but the Google spam filter is
and with external parties with ease. It’s something seemingly so basic,
better. It’s so good that now
but bringing people together has been very beneficial.”
I’m just using the Google
› Improved security with better protection against attacks. spam solution, while at the
Consolidating data onto the Google Cloud significantly reduced the same reducing the number of
number of endpoints that needed protection and allowed greater malicious emails reaching
control over permissions and access by leveraging Google employees.”
Workspace’s admin tools; this reduces the overall attack surface. An
CISO, government
SVP of technology in the automotive services industry stated: “We
have much better visibility and control over our collaboration tools. We
can see who has access to what documents, control how long they
have access to it, who has the rights to share with which people, not
share it, etc. We just didn’t have any of those capabilities before.”
› Capex and opex savings. Organizations noted that they have
reduced capital and operating expenses as a result of the Google
Workspace investment. Savings came from several areas, such as “The impact on productivity and
reduced number of servers and hardware maintenance, reduced collaboration has been very
corporate travel, and reduced legacy IT software license costs. good. People are realizing
they can share information
and collaborate across our
150 locations and with
external parties with ease. It’s
something seemingly so basic,
but bringing people together
has been very beneficial.”
SVP of technology, financial
services industry
7|
Composite Organization
Based on the interviews, Forrester constructed a TEI framework, a
composite company, and an associated ROI analysis that illustrates the
areas financially affected. The composite organization is representative
of the eight companies that Forrester interviewed and is used to present
the aggregate financial analysis in the next section. The composite
organization that Forrester synthesized from the customer interviews has
the following characteristics: Key assumptions
Description of composite. The composite organization is a global • 20,000 employees
conglomerate that operates in the North America, EMEA, LATAM, and
APAC regions. It has 20,000 employees and annual revenues of
• $3 billion annual revenue
$3 billion. Employee headcount and annual revenue grow at a 3% rate • 3% growth YOY
year over year (YOY).
• North America, EMEA,
Deployment characteristics. The composite organization deploys
Google Workspace over a period of seven months. Employees at the LATAM, APAC
composite organization have access to and utilize: Gmail, Calendar,
Drive, Hangouts Meet, Hangouts Chat, Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides,
Keep, Google+, Sites, App Maker, Jamboard, and Cloud Search.
Adoption rate represents the percentage of employees actively using the
Google Workspace collaboration tools as opposed to the legacy solution.
The adoption rate for Year 1 is 75%, which increases to 90% and 100%
in years 2 and 3, respectively. Previously, the composite organization
had used a mix of on-premises and cloud solutions. The composite used
cloud apps for specific point solutions like chat and videoconferencing;
however, it hosted core productivity applications like email and document
sharing on-premises.
The composite organization decided to invest in a 3rd party single sign on
(SSO) to manage access to Google Workspace and their other business
applications which is reflected in their overall subscription costs. Google
also offers an SSO solution included in the Google Workspace license.
8|
Analysis Of Benefits
QUANTIFIED BENEFIT DATA AS APPLIED TO THE COMPOSITE
Total Benefits
PRESENT
REF. BENEFIT YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3 TOTAL VALUE
Additional bottom-line profit
Atr $4,338,000 $5,302,440 $6,034,399 $15,674,839 $12,859,552
driven by Google Workspace
Etr Reduced risk of data breach $961,875 $961,875 $961,875 $2,885,625 $2,392,041
Ftr CapEx and OpEx savings $4,162,500 $4,735,980 $5,169,816 $14,068,296 $11,582,283
Benefit 1: Revenue Growth Leading To Increased The table above shows the total of all
benefits across the areas listed below,
Bottom-Line Profit Driven By Google Workspace as well as present values (PVs)
Interviewed organizations noted that Google Workspace catalyzed an discounted at 10%. Over three years,
the composite organization expects
organizational shift toward embracing innovation and changed the way
risk-adjusted total benefits to have a
employees did their work. Employees across business units and markets PV of $55.7 million.
could access and share data more easily, improving the agility and
flexibility of the organizations. Google Workspace’s intuitive collaboration
tools made teams faster and more efficient by enabling employees to
improve business processes and break down silos. These improvements
in the way the organizations worked contributed to the growth in top-line
revenue.
Additionally, after deploying Google Workspace, specific initiatives within
$12.9 million
the sales organizations emerged to optimize business processes and
reduce back-office work. These initiatives led to increased sales three-year
productivity and better customer experience, which ultimately led to benefit PV
higher sales.
› Google Workspace Initiative 1: Improvement in sales productivity.
Sales teams were able to work together more effectively, share
insights, break down information silos, and reduce communication
lapses imposed by geographical boundaries. Sales reps were able to
decrease time spent creating and recreating documents and increase
the time spent with customers, resulting in an increase in sales. Additional bottom-line profit:
› Google Workspace Initiative 2: Improved customer experience.
23% of total benefits
Sales teams had access to historic customer data, insights, and
product and marketing documentation, elevating the quality of the
customer relationships. Sales reps could have more relevant and
focused discussions and quickly and effectively address questions
from customers in real time, improving the quality of each customer
interaction.
9|
Based on the customer interviews, Forrester estimates for the composite
organization:
› Total expected revenue in Year 1 with the legacy solution is $3 billion,
with a 3% sales growth YOY.
› Google Workspace drove additional revenue growth of 1.5% YOY.
› The adoption rate of Google Workspace is 75% in Year 1, 90% in Year
2, and 100% in Year 3.
› Profit margin is 15%. Top-line revenue
This benefit can vary due to uncertainty related to: increases by $107
› Growth in sales with the Google Workspace transformation, and the million, leading to
attribution percentage to Google Workspace. $16 million in
› Adoption rate. bottom-line profits
› Profit margin. over three years.
To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by
20%, yielding an annual benefit ranging from $4.3 million to $6.0 million,
with a three-year risk-adjusted total PV of nearly $12.9 million.
Benefit 1: Additional Bottom-Line Profit Driven By Google Workspace: Calculation Table
REF. METRIC CALC. YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3
A1 Annual top-line revenue, legacy 3% YOY growth $3,000,000,000 $3,090,000,000 $3,182,700,000
Composite
A2 Google Workspace adoption rate 75% 90% 100%
organization
Additional growth in revenue due to Composite
A3 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%
Google Workspace organization
10 |
Benefit 2: Increased Employee Efficiency And
Productivity
Interviewed organizations also described the following benefits related to
end user productivity:
› Seamless real-time editing in Docs, Sheets, and Slides allowed
employees to collaborate more effectively. Cloud Search and Google+ $22.1 million
made discovering and accessing relevant information easier. three-year
benefit PV
› Having a consistent, seamless, collaborative experience across
devices allowed employees to continue to be actively engaged in
projects even when they were traveling or working remotely.
› Tools designed for collaboration like Hangouts Chat and Team Drives
allowed teams to shorten meeting durations and focus on active work,
sometimes even eliminating entire meetings that were no longer
necessary due to a more active, collaborative environment.
End user productivity (tactical):
40% of total benefits
› Intelligent features in Calendar, like find a time or automatic room
booker, made the remaining meetings easier to schedule and removed
the friction to join.
› The cloud-native nature of Google Workspace meant that updates and
patches were automatically pushed to all devices, eliminating the
downtime associated with update and patching activity experienced
with the legacy solutions. Additionally, the collaboration tools
themselves had higher availability because there was no scheduled
downtime or maintenance activities.
Based on the customer interviews, Forrester estimates for the composite 5,009,106 total hours
organization:
saved over three
› Twenty thousand employees in Year 1, which grows 3% YOY. Fifty years
percent of employees are in highly collaborative roles.
› The adoption rate of Google Workspace is 75% in Year 1, 90% in Year
2, and 100% in Year 3.
› Employees see productivity improvements due to real-time
collaboration, mobility, accessibility, reduced number and duration of
meetings, improved uptime for collaboration tools, and reduced
downtime from software updates. Productivity gains increase YOY as
employees become more familiar with Google Workspace and become
more proficient with its tools.
1,001,821 hours of
› Hourly fully burdened salaries are $35 and $20 for highly collaborative increased productivity
and less collaborative employees, respectively.
over three years
› Employees allocate 20% of the time saved to value-added tasks.
This benefit can vary due to uncertainty related to:
› Number of employees and their roles.
Impact risk is the risk that the business
› Adoption rate. or technology needs of the
organization may not be met by the
› Improvements in productivity. investment, resulting in lower overall
total benefits. The greater the
› The amount of value-added productivity that organizations can capture uncertainty, the wider the potential
with time savings. range of outcomes for benefit
To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by estimates.
15%, yielding an annual benefit ranging from $5.8 million to $12.4 million,
with a three-year risk-adjusted total PV of nearly $22.1 million.
11 |
Benefit 2: Increased Employee Efficiency And Productivity: Calculation Table
REF. METRIC CALC. YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3
Composite
B1 Total employees 20,000 20,600 21,218
organization
Composite
B2 Percent highly collaborative workers 50% 50% 50%
organization
Composite
B3 Percent less collaborative workers 50% 50% 50%
organization
B1*B4*(B2*B11*B1
Increased employee efficiency and
Bt 3+B3*B12*B14)*52 $6,864,000 $10,609,700 $14,575,069
productivity
*B16
12 |
Benefit 3: IT Productivity And Efficiency Gains
Interviewed organizations also described the following benefits related to
IT productivity:
› Reduction in the number of on-demand IT support and help desk
tickets related to email, file share, videoconferencing, patching, and
$1.6 million
upgrading due to Google Workspace’s intuitive design and ease of
use, as well as business users’ prior familiarity with the tools from their three-year
personal lives. benefit PV
13 |
Benefit 3: IT Productivity And Efficiency Gains: Calculation Table
REF. METRIC CALC. YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3
Number of hours per year on help desk tickets
Composite
C1 related to email, file share, laptop refresh, and 26,000 26,000 26,000
organization
other collaboration functions
Composite
C2 Decrease in required support time 20% 20% 20%
organization
Number of hours on update and patching Composite
C3 7,000 7,000 7,000
activities – legacy solution organization
Composite
C4 IT administrator fully burdened salary (hourly) $58 $58 $58
organization
14 |
› Malware infection rate of spam emails requiring remediation.
› Cost to remediate malware.
To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by
15%, yielding an annual benefit of over $2 million, with a three-year
risk-adjusted total PV of over $5.2 million.
Benefit 4: Reduced Security Remediation Costs From Email Malware And Exploits: Calculation Table
REF. METRIC CALC. YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3
Total spam, malware, and phishing emails
Composite
D1 filtered per month, legacy (90% of malicious 500,000 515,000 530,450
organization
emails filtered)
Additional spam, malware, and phishing emails
Composite
D2 filtered with Gmail (99.9% of malicious emails 10% 10% 10%
organization
filtered total)
Total additional spam, malware, and phishing
D3 D1*D2 50,000 51,500 53,045
emails filtered per month, Gmail
Composite
D4 Spam, malware, and phishing click-through rate 10% 10% 10%
organization
Percent of spam, malware, and phishing click- Composite
D5 10% 10% 10%
throughs requiring remediation organization
Total additional malware/data incidents requiring
D6 D3*D4*D5 500 515 530.45
remediation – legacy solution (monthly)
Composite
D7 Remediation costs per instance $400 $400 $400
organization
Reduced security remediation costs from email
Dt D6*12*D7 $2,400,000 $2,472,000 $2,546,160
malware and exploits
15 |
Based on the customer interviews, Forrester estimates for the composite
organization:
“Investigations are easier with
› A ‘large data breach’ is defined as an incident involving 100,000 the Google tools. They offer a
compromised records or more. lot more flexibility, and finding
› The average cost of a customer record data breach is $150 per record. the information that we need is
faster.”
› The likelihood of a customer record data breach was 15% for the
legacy IT environment, annually. Fifty percent of this risk is attributable CISO, government
to the legacy email and collaboration environment, and 50% is
attributable to the rest of the IT environment.
› Google Workspace improves the security of the email and
collaboration environment by 95% (the actual improvement may be
higher depending on an organization’s specific IT environment). This
improvement is due to:
• Organizations having better control over sensitive data.
• Google Workspace updates happening automatically in the
cloud. As data breaches tend to occur in unpatched systems,
this removes a significant data breach vulnerability.
This benefit can vary due to uncertainty related to:
› Number of customer records at risk for a data breach.
› Cost per customer record lost during a data breach incident.
› Likelihood of a data breach incident.
To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by
10%, yielding an annual benefit of $961,875, with a three-year
risk-adjusted total PV of $2.4 million.
Benefit 5: Reduced Risk Of Data Breach: Calculation Table
REF. METRIC CALC. YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3
Number of records at risk for large data Composite
E1 100,000 100,000 100,000
breach organization
Composite
E2 Cost per record $150 $150 $150
organization
Composite
E3 Cost per data breach $15,000,000 $15,000,000 $15,000,000
organization
Likelihood of a data breach (50% attributed to
Composite
E4 legacy email and collaboration suite, 50% 15% 15% 15%
organization
attributed to rest of IT environment)
16 |
Benefit 6: Capex And Opex Savings
Organizations noted that they have reduced capital and operating
expenses as a result of the Google Workspace investment, saving in
areas such as:
› Retired servers and data centers.
› Reduced costs and labor associated with server hardware and
maintenance.
› Reduced corporate travel.
› Reduced legacy IT software license costs from sunsetting third-party
tools and software:
• Mobile device management (MDM).
• Spam filter.
• Identity and access management.
• Content management platforms. $11.6 million
• Workstream collaboration solutions. three-year
• Meeting solutions. benefit PV
17 |
Benefit 6: Capex And Opex Savings Calculation Table
REF. METRIC CALC. YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3
Composite
F1 Number of servers 2,000 2,000 2,000
organization
Composite
F2 Reduction in servers 20% 20% 20%
organization
Composite
F3 Amortized annual cost per server $2,000 $2,000 $2,000
organization
Composite
F4 Reduction in corporate travel $1,125,000 $1,125,000 $1,125,000
organization
Avoided legacy software licenses: MDM,
spam, malware and phishing filter, content Composite
F5 $2,700,000 $3,337,200 $3,819,240
management, identity and access organization
management, etc.
Ft Capex and opex savings F1*F2*F3+F4+F5 $4,625,000 $5,262,200 $5,744,240
18 |
Unquantified Benefits
While there were strong and quantifiable benefits the interviewed
organizations observed by using Google Workspace, the organizations
experienced significant qualitative benefits as well. These could
potentially be quantified in a financial analysis if given the appropriate
data and metrics.
› Ability to attract and retain top talent. Organizations reported that
moving to Google Workspace made their employees happier.
Employees felt that the move to Google Workspace signaled that their
organizations cared about their experiences at work and were striving
to provide the best tools available. Prospective employees would also
ask what collaboration toolset was available and were sometimes
dissuaded by the legacy solutions. An SVP of technology in the
financial services industry told Forrester: “Being an organization that
uses Google Workspace, it’s a signal to potential employees. It’s
certainly easier to attract talent.”
› Reduced recruiting and onboarding costs. The ability to attract and
retain top talent reduces recruiting and onboarding costs in and of
itself; however, organizations also reported that the onboarding
process for new employees was simpler and faster with Google
Workspace. New employees typically have experience with Google
products in their personal lives, and the intuitive design of the tools
resulted in shorter onboarding and ramp-up periods.
› Reduced costs associated with mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
Integrating acquired organizations or being integrated after an
acquisition is often a long and painstaking process. Interviewed
organizations reported that with Google Workspace, the process was
much faster and relatively painless when compared to integrations with
their legacy solutions. Integration is necessary to start leveraging the
true value of most mergers and acquisitions, and being on Google
Workspace sped this process up, reducing the ultimate cost and
accelerating the time-to-value. An SVP of technology in the automotive
services industry said: “With Google Workspace, it’s easier onboarding
the organizations we acquire. In addition to getting those organizations
onto our platform, we able to significantly reduce their software
licenses costs almost immediately.”
19 |
Analysis Of Costs
QUANTIFIED COST DATA AS APPLIED TO THE COMPOSITE
Total Costs
PRESENT
REF. COST INITIAL YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3 TOTAL VALUE
Gtr Subscription costs $0 $3,675,000 $3,785,250 $3,898,808 $11,359,058 $9,398,447
Implementation and
Htr $1,156,960 $949,704 $949,704 $949,704 $4,006,072 $3,518,733
ongoing support
Total costs (risk-
$1,156,960 $4,624,704 $4,734,954 $4,848,512 $15,365,130 $12,917,180
adjusted)
Cost 1: Subscription Costs The table above shows the total of all
costs across the areas listed below, as
Interviewed organizations noted subscription costs, both for Google well as present values (PVs)
Workspace and for an SSO solution to allow ease of access to their discounted at 10%. Over three years,
cloud tools for employees. the composite organization expects
risk-adjusted total costs to have a PV
Based on the customer interviews, Forrester estimates for the composite of over $12.9 million.
organization:
› An annual subscription cost of $120 per user for Google Workspace.
› The composite organization decided to use a 3rd party SSO to manage
access to their business applications. An SSO solution is included in
the Google Workspace license.
› An annual subscription cost of $55 per user for an SSO solution.
This cost can vary due to uncertainty related to subscription costs and Implementation risk is the risk that a
negotiated rates. proposed investment may deviate from
the original or expected requirements,
To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 5%, resulting in higher costs than
yielding an annual cost ranging from $3.7 million to $3.9 million, with a anticipated. The greater the
three-year risk-adjusted total PV of $9.4 million. uncertainty, the wider the potential
range of outcomes for cost estimates.
* Licensing costs are based on customers’ interviewed when Google Workspace was formerly known as G Suite. While this analysis is still valid,
pricing
. guidelines and features may have changed so please reach out to your Google Representative for updated licensing information.
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Cost 2: Implementation And Ongoing Support
Interviewed organizations described the following costs related to
implementation and ongoing support:
› Full-time staff required for planning and implementation activities.
› Professional services required for implementation and ongoing
support.
› Required training for employees migrating from the legacy solutions to
Google Workspace.
› A team required for ongoing change management, support, and
Google Workspace initiatives.
Based on the customer interviews, Forrester estimates for the composite
organization:
› Five IT full-time equivalents (FTEs) for seven months for planning and
implementation activities.
› Professional services for implementation of $200,000, and ongoing
support of $60,000 annually. Seven months
› Twenty thousand employees needing 1 hour of training during the Total implementation
migration to Google Workspace, with a blended fully burdened hourly and deployment time
salary of $28.
› An IT team of four FTEs for ongoing change management, support,
and Google Workspace initiatives and three FTEs for business-unit-
level Google Workspace initiatives.
This cost can vary due to uncertainty related to:
› Length and effort of implementation.
› Required training.
› Ongoing support.
To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 5%,
yielding an initial cost of $1.2 million, and an annual cost of $949,704,
with a three-year risk-adjusted total PV of over $3.5 million.
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Cost 2: Implementation And Ongoing Support: Calculation Table
REF. METRIC CALC. INITIAL YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3
Number of internal FTEs for Composite
H1 5
implementation organization
Composite
H3 Length of implementation (months) 7
organization
Composite
H4 Professional services $200,000 $60,000 $60,000 $60,000
organization
Number of employees moving from
Composite
H5 the legacy solution to Google 20,000
organization
Workspace
Hourly fully burdened salary Composite
H6 $28 $28 $28 $28
(company average) organization
Composite
H7 Training time per employee (hours) 1
organization
Number of internal FTEs for
ongoing change management, Composite
H8 4 4 4
support, and Google Workspace organization
initiatives
Number of internal FTEs for
Composite
H9 business unit level Google 3 3 3
organization
Workspace initiatives
(H1*H2*H3/12+H4)
Implementation and ongoing
Ht +(H5*H6*H7)+(H8* $1,101,867 $904,480 $904,480 $904,480
support
H2)+(H9*H2)
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Financial Summary
CONSOLIDATED THREE-YEAR RISK-ADJUSTED METRICS
$50.0 M
$40.0 M
$30.0 M
These risk-adjusted ROI,
$20.0 M NPV, and payback period
values are determined by
$10.0 M
applying risk-adjustment
factors to the unadjusted
results in each Benefit and
-$10.0 M Cost section.
Initial Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
PRESENT
INITIAL YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3 TOTAL VALUE
Total costs ($1,156,960) ($4,624,704) ($4,734,954) ($4,848,512) ($15,365,130) ($12,917,180)
ROI 331%
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Google Workspace: Overview
The following information is provided by Google. Forrester has not validated any claims and does not endorse
Google or its offerings.
Google Workspace helps you get more done at work and at home—with communication and collaboration tools
known and loved by billions of users, thoughtfully connected together. It’s a place for shared interests,
projects, planning, and group work, with simplicity, ease of use, and helpful features that make any kind of work
more satisfying. And it’s designed from the ground up with industry-leading security and privacy controls built-in.
Simple
An integrated workspace that’s simple and easy to use, so you spend less time figuring out how to
manage your work and more time actually doing it.
Helpful
Address what’s important & let Google handle the rest with best-in-class AI and search technology that
helps you work smarter.
Flexible
Designed for flexible, fluid, and fast collaboration - when, where, and how you need it.
Google Workspace thoughtfully brings together everything teams need to do their best work -messaging,
meetings, docs, tasks, and more... It’s about improving the employee experience and helping people and teams
maximize their impact, so you can bring out the best version of your business.
Google Workspace helps you address key business challenges. For example:
• Coordinate distributed teams. Google Workspace enables your people to come together while they are
apart. It makes team building easier and helps foster relationships at work.
• Cross functional groups can work together easily and fluidly - no matter where everyone is working from.
• Collaborate seamlessly with other organizations like customers, partners, and suppliers.
• Hire and retain top talent by providing a delightful recruiting experience for candidates, and delivering a
thoughtful working environment where the tools you use everyday are seamlessly integrated.
• Streamline processes like planning and decision making. Execution is faster and straightforward.
24 |
25 |
Appendix A: Total Economic Impact
Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester
Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making
processes and assists vendors in communicating the value proposition Present value (PV)
of their products and services to clients. The TEI methodology helps
companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of IT The present or current
initiatives to both senior management and other key business value of (discounted) cost and
stakeholders. benefit estimates given at an
interest rate (the discount rate).
The PV of costs and benefits feed
into the total NPV of cash flows.
Total Economic Impact Approach
Benefits represent the value delivered to the business by the Net present
product. The TEI methodology places equal weight on the value (NPV)
measure of benefits and the measure of costs, allowing for a
full examination of the effect of the technology on the entire The present or current value of
organization. (discounted) future net cash flows
given an interest rate (the discount
rate). A positive project NPV
normally indicates that the
investment should be made, unless
Costs consider all expenses necessary to deliver the other projects have higher NPVs.
proposed value, or benefits, of the product. The cost category
within TEI captures incremental costs over the existing
environment for ongoing costs associated with the solution. Return on
investment (ROI)
Payback
period
The initial investment column contains costs incurred at “time 0” or at the
beginning of Year 1 that are not discounted. All other cash flows are discounted The breakeven point for an
using the discount rate at the end of the year. PV calculations are calculated for investment. This is the point in time
each total cost and benefit estimate. NPV calculations in the summary tables are at which net benefits (benefits
the sum of the initial investment and the discounted cash flows in each year. minus costs) equal initial
Sums and present value calculations of the Total Benefits, Total Costs, and investment or cost.
Cash Flow tables may not exactly add up, as some rounding may occur.
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