5 Key Benefits of Google Workspace for the Financial Services and Insurance Industry

In a highly regulated industry that is no stranger to crisis, rebounding from the pandemic undoubtedly poses a challenge to the financial services sector. From accelerating online banking to closing deals virtually, financial services organizations have become increasingly digitized over the past few years, with the pandemic speeding up digital adoption even more. With so much at stake, leading enterprises are turning to cloud-based solutions to solve these complex challenges, and the myriad of Google Workspace features for financial services make Google the leader in the collaboration that is needed for the “new normal.”

When the rebranded Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) was introduced in the fall of 2020, Google announced many new and robust security features to fulfill the industry’s growing needs. Despite the financial services sector’s perception as risk-averse and too highly regulated to succeed in the cloud, enterprises in this arena are discovering that they can enhance partnerships, foster a culture of collaboration, and increase innovation in the cloud with Google Workspace. 

As a leader in cloud transformation for financial services, Maven Wave understands the impact of the pandemic and has helped solve the most complex of challenges for the world’s top financial services and insurance institutions. At a time when so much is evolving, it’s vital to embark on a digital journey with an experienced team that can provide the support and expertise needed to succeed. With that said, let’s take a look at the benefits of Google Workspace for financial services that address strengthening security across a regulated industry to empower a new digital workforce.

1. Security Built from the Ground Up

With security being a top priority, leading financial organizations trust that their data is secure at each and every step of the way with Google Workspace. Putting security first so that enterprises can focus on cloud adoption and transformation, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Google Workspace regularly undergo several independent third-party audits. These reviews ensure the most stringent compliance requirements are met, including ISAE 3000, PCI DSS, and more. Google Cloud’s security model and world-scale infrastructure keep financial services organizations secure while giving teams the unique capability to innovate, collaborate, and thrive in an increasingly evolving and competitive landscape. 

In one specific success story, Maven Wave partnered with a top ten, North American bank as the team elected to make a bold transformation to Google Workspace. With over 750 branches in the United States and 65,000 internal users with more than 15,000 shared mailboxes, this institution has a large and complicated infrastructure with significant regulatory obligations. To learn more about how our team achieved this by applying an extensive, multi-disciplinary effort to thoroughly identify all security requirements, check out the case study here.

2. Increased Efficiency Across IT

IT departments across the globe are able to focus on innovation thanks to Google Workspace Security Center and Security Investigation Center. These centers enable IT to adjust settings based on user levels and change the security policy in real-time. In addition, these features help identify potential risks and compromised users. 

From a collaboration standpoint, IT departments can easily create internal security measures to ensure that the right departments can access the correct documents securely on Drive. Documents can also be shared with clients without risking their information by making it public or providing others access. With more teams working digitally, Google Workspace enables a secure environment for productive meetings or brainstorm sessions on Meet, conversations on chat, client presentations, budget preparations, and more.

3. Driving Collaboration and Productivity

Google Workspace is unmatched in its ability to deliver collaboration benefits for financial services and insurance. Google Workspace can be leveraged so that teams are able to work together regardless of their physical locations or devices. In a fast-moving industry, changes or suggestions can be made instantaneously across an organization, speeding up the process. Both Docs and Sheets also enable employees with the ability to restore previous versions of a document in case of errors, mishaps, or miscalculations. Unwieldy and error-prone version control is eliminated when using Google Workspace.

Now more than ever, customers and organizations alike demand simplicity, cross-functionality, insights, consolidation, and reporting – and Google Workspace delivers. Sheets meets or exceeds the capabilities available in other legacy products and new functions are added regularly. Integrations and data connectors are available with many popular software packages and the macro and scripting capabilities allows users to expand or interact with almost any API interface. When it comes to driving productivity, Google Meet has been leading the way. Employees can easily share a link in a Meet invitation or during the meeting to a budget prepared in Sheets that everyone can edit and brainstorm together in real-time. What’s more, Google Slides allows cross-functional teams to complete projects and presentations before sharing with clients from any device or location.

4. Scalable and Measurable

A booming industry requires the most innovative and advanced tools to grow. With Google Workspace, businesses can get new employees up-and-running with ease no matter where they are located and they can also support you through the entire hiring, onboarding, and training process. It’s also easy and straightforward to add a new hire to the admin panel, providing financial services and insurance with collaboration and consistency at scale.

Another benefit of Google Workspace for Financial Services is the ability to measure the quality of services with an internal survey with Forms and Sheets. Also, teams can prioritize projects and streamline their operations using internal surveys to identify redundant processes or procedures that have marginal value. By capturing the responses, leaders can use the insights and data to make better decisions. 

5. Real-Time Data Capabilities

With Sheets and the BigQuery data connector pulling in disparate data sources,  organizations can build datasets to gain insights, such as analyzing data on transactions at different bank branches to see which are performing better. Google Workspace also allows teams to review the impact of what-if scenarios by adjusting key inputs in your model and share the sheet in real-time internally to get their feedback. Sheets also make it easy to organize financial information and bring order and meaning to financial data. One way to achieve organization and improve efficiency is to move financial data from several spreadsheets into a single spreadsheet with the IMPORTRANGE function. You can also add stock prices to visualize trends with the GOOGLEFINANCE function.

When working cross-functionally, teams can host important real-time metrics and data visualizations on a team website. Members can easily access metrics on topics such as budgets, ROI, and bottom lines. Admins can also create an internal team website in Sites to host this data, as well as link to important documents and set permissions and Groups to control access to sensitive information.

Built to Meet the Speed Needs of Financial Services and Insurance

The unprecedented speed at which the financial services industry adopted digital transformation to stay above water amid a pandemic-driven evolution set the pace for the future. To move at this pace requires innovation and industry-specific solutions to empower the entire organization, and legacy office tools simply can’t provide that. In an industry where time kills deals and meeting security requirements is non-negotiable, the ability to deliver new services and respond to customer and employee demands in real time holds the key to success. 

With a dedicated financial services practice and 11 Google Cloud Partner Specializations including Cloud Migration, Security, and Enterprise Collaboration, Maven Wave can provide your organization with a more flexible, productive, and collaborative environment to meet current and future demands in a Google Workspace environment. Contact us to get started.