Kategorie: Google Cloud Platform

These inspiring small and medium businesses are helping the world navigate COVID-19 together

No matter where you are in the world, we’ve all had to adapt our routines to navigate the “new normal” brought on by COVID-19. We’ve been inspired by the ways businesses and organizations have responded, from accelerating medical research using the latest AI technology to enabling remote healthcare to protect doctors and their patients. As Google Cloud small and medium business (SMB) customers keep innovating to support governments and organizations around the world, we share some of their stories to inspire you in the fight against this virus:Giving millions the information they urgently needCOVID-19 triggered an overwhelming need for information, flooding healthcare support centers with calls. At the same time, social distancing measures disrupted legacy customer support systems and forced call center staff to find new, safer ways to provide continuous support to those in need. Solutions were needed to keep the public informed, and Landbot.io and Clustaar promptly partnered with entrepreneurs, businesses, and governmental organizations to help.Spanish startup Landbot helps people find what they need, quickly and easily, when browsing a website. A no-code solution, Landbot is easy to implement on both the web and popular messaging platforms, gives users an interactive, adaptive messaging thread that uses conversational prompts to understand and deliver the information they need. Since the start of the pandemic, organizations all over the world—from online pharmacies in Ireland to hospitals in the US to official COVID-19 communication channels in Syria—have used Landbot at cost price or for free to supply the public with urgent information. So far, Landbot has automated 280 million messages to respond to urgent requests from more than 20 million unique users. To make this possible, Google Cloud for Startups supports Landbot.io with free credits to grow and continue developing more resources using the same tools and infrastructure used to build Google.At the same time, in France, Clustaar is reducing the pressure on customer support lines using front-line chatbots, designed to handle the high volumes of medical and political queries on local government and media websites. With support from the Google Cloud for Startups program, Clustaar has scaled its architecture to handle more than 8 million queries from more than 1.5 million people.Making remote healthcare and medical research possibleFor our most vulnerable, who need to monitor their health more often due to COVID-19 risks, lockdown has posed a new challenge: regular visits to the doctor were no longer recommended. When diabetes patients were advised to self-isolate to avoid exposure to the virus, SocialDiabetes made it possible for them to continue being monitored 24/7 from home. The app, which is free to download, monitors and diagnoses diabetes in real time by integrating with glucometers to automatically collect blood glucose data from patients. With their permission, the app can also send this information to doctors so they can continue to provide recommendations and support their patients remotely. SocialDiabetes includes a video conference and chat system to make it easier for doctors and patients to connect remotely. With support from Google Cloud for Startups, SocialDiabetes has made this important platform free to use for HCPs during COVID19 pandemy.Another point of concern for the medical community is that innovation across biomedicine and other disease areas aside from COVID-19 risked falling behind due to the closure of research labs, delayed clinical trials, and reallocated scientific funding. To help, UK-based AI startup Biorelate has opened up free access to its lead product, Galactic AI, a browser-ready deep search tool that helps researchers to make better use of existing biomedical research data from their desks. Google Kubernetes Engine helps to scale the solution, which auto-ingests more than 30 million biomedical research texts from a wide range of sources to reveal hidden insights by curating and connecting data from global scientific output, quickly. The company is now rolling out a long-term plan to register more researchers focused on drug discovery and to keep Galactic AI open for academic researchers for as long as possible.Keeping the public informed on the factsMeanwhile, being exposed to an overload of information about COVID-19 brings its own kinds of challenges to the general public. Between January and April 2020, 100 million social media posts and more than 25 million long-form documents, such as news articles and blog posts, were published about COVID-19. Amongst them were not only important recommendations published by health experts, but also conspiracy theories and misinformation with potential to put lives at risk. This surge in media and public interest presented Logically, an AI-powered platform fighting online misinformation, with a workload 10 times greater than it processes in a typical month. Faced with the challenge of exponential demand, Google Cloud connected Logically with Searce, a Global Google Cloud Premier Partner, to quickly scale-up using Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). Searce helped implement a combination of preemptible and on-demand node pools on Google Cloud to scale cost-effectively. In the new architecture, Logically can offer a high degree of availability to users and public sector partners looking to fact-check online information about COVID-19. To help tackle the spread of false information about the pandemic and improve the information landscape for more than a billion people around the world, the platform has identified half a million false posts and articles, and alerted partners to 13 million instances of bot involvement on social media.Responding to the pandemic without coding Faces Advendurance is a South African company that organizes adventure and endurance sporting events. Being able to participate in such events represents a normalcy that many have sought throughout the pandemic, and as the virus spread, the company focused on making participation safe. They turned to AppSheet, Google Cloud’s no-code application development platform, in order to quickly build new registration and logistics processes. Hennie Scheepers, Information Systems Manager at Faces Advendurance, does not consider himself a programmer. But with AppSheet, he quickly built an app that imports data into Google Sheets from race participants who have pre-registered online through their entry platform, and that volunteers can use on mobile phones to manage participants as they arrive at the event—all things that made it that much easier to comply with COVID regulations limiting the number of people at events or in race batches. Faces Advendurance uses an RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) timing system in which race participants get a tag with a tracking code that is automatically scanned by RFID readers as participants cross the finish line. Participants’ results automatically update in Sheets, which makes results available in the app in real time for race organizers. “It could hardly have gone better!” Scheepers said of a September 2020 event. “We received so many compliments from participants about the new registration system.”The AppSheet team has been active in pandemic response in other ways, including partnering with USMEDIC, a provider of comprehensive equipment maintenance solutions in the healthcare industry, and other companies to build and deploy a medical equipment tracking and management solution to support healthcare organizations in their COVID-19 response.Working collaboratively to stop the spread of the virusUnder the coordination of the Comité Stratégique de Filière Mode & Luxe, French textile industries gathered to tackle a shortage of masks and surgical gowns by converting their production lines, even while maintaining revenue streams and employment in face of an emergent economic downturn. Supporting them is Savoir Faire Ensemble, a web platform where professionals able to produce masks and surgical gowns could register for free, and those in need of these products could easily order them directly from suppliers during the peak of the pandemic. Nearly 1,500 firms joined Savoir Faire Ensemble, and more than 1,500 Google Accounts were set up for free to support their work during the pandemic. Using Google Workspace collaboration and communication tools, the consortium coordinates the work of suppliers and answers questions from buyers and from potential new members. Sheets is consulted by hundreds of members everyday, who use it to view and keep track of all orders coming in from the consortium’s website. The Savoir Faire Ensemble is now the biggest textile and clothing consortium in France, and it has produced 90 million masks and 12 million surgical coats since the start of the pandemic.In Italy, COVID-19 also highlighted the need for new protocols, procedures, and tools to enable specialists across the country to collaborate in real time. To help emergency care units achieve this goal, a national project was set in motion by SIAARTI, the Italian Society for Anesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation, and Intensive Care, which develops guidelines and clinical protocols in these fields. With support from Biotest Italia, the Society was able to establish a multifunctional communication platform capable of grouping hospitals in the same area, regionally or nationally, to share COVID-19 knowledge, starting with adoptable therapeutic protocols. Using Google Currents to exchange information, Google Forms to collect data analyzed with Google Data Studio, and Google Meet to provide training and host meetings, SIAARTI created a repository for COVID-19 guidelines and articles and enabled the safe sharing of protocols and other sensitive data amongst Italian health practitioners.Supporting the scientific community in the search for a cureCOVID-19 may have brought the world to a virtual halt, but the scientific community is in a race against time to publish scientific results related to the virus and unlock as much knowledge as possible to treat those in need. Supporting these efforts is a biomedical research discovery tool launched by UK-based company Causaly. It unlocks key evidence in research papers, faster, by applying machine learning to global scientific literature, supporting speedy new predictions in biomedical science. Causaly’s AI platform enables rapid identification of all previously reported drugs for the betacoronavirus genus, and uncovers relationships that wouldn’t be obvious in a traditional literature review search. Using Google Compute Engine to run its natural language processing pipeline and host the graph database containing all the analysis results, the platform uses artificial intelligence to rapidly read, interpret, and surface evidence from 30 million biomedical publications in seconds, enabling researchers to not only rapidly map epidemiology data, biomarkers, genes, and molecular targets, but also identify potential treatment options. As of April 2020, Causaly’s AI platform analyzed 40,000 COVID-19 papers made public as part of CORD-19, the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset, and 30 million existing biomedical publications. From this, it has identified 250 compounds with the highest promise for further COVID-19 research treatments, and made the information available for immediate download to aid researchers. Causaly’s dataset has also been provided to the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute (GHDDI) to support COVID-19 research in the future. Meanwhile, here at Google Cloud, we continue working to ensure that these inspiring companies and many others have the tools they need to bring their innovative solutions to the world. We are humbled and inspired to join forces with our customers and to support their efforts throughout COVID-19 and beyond.Related ArticleThe Google Cloud Healthcare Consent Management API: protecting emerging data in digital care and researchGoogle Cloud’s Healthcare Consent Management API helps healthcare app developers and researchers manage individuals’ consent of their hea…Read Article
Quelle: Google Cloud Platform

BHI: Embracing Google Workspace and AppSheet to transform the workplace

In the last two decades, BHI, once a small construction company in Vernal, Utah, has expanded its operations to dozens of industries in over 25 states. But while the company grew, its technology trailed behind. File sharing and emails both ran off a single server. Editing a document was a grueling undertaking that required an employee to VPN in, patiently download the file, edit it, then upload it again—all from a job site with limited internet connection. Acknowledging the need for better technology, BHI adopted Google Workspace and AppSheet and transformed its business to be more innovative, productive, and profitable.Rebuilding collaboration and productivityBHI first looked to replace its archaic email and file-sharing systems. They found that Google Workspace—as a proven and popular collaboration solution for remote teams and a familiar, preferred platform that most employees use in their personal lives—was the clear choice. BHI migrated its 500 employees to Google Workspace in less than a week. Productivity immediately soared, since employees could collaborate more easily with Google Workspace’s products and access them from any device, from anywhere—even at the construction sites.For instance, the contract writing process drastically improved with Google Workspace. Version control had always been a struggle—as employees circulated a draft contract from one computer to the next, versions became unruly and randomized, untracked changes popped up, and files went missing. With Google Workspace, the pre-construction, legal, and finance teams can all edit and track changes of a contract from wherever they work. Version control has become a thing of the past, as everyone is always working on the latest version.By adopting Google Workspace, BHI decentralized its operations and began collaborating in real time across over 150 job sites. Management and IT gained new insights into challenges that they may never have uncovered nor confronted without a cloud-based productivity tool. The IT team also saw an opportunity to overhaul the methods of their deskless workforce, which accounts for 90% of the company. This deskless majority needed to connect directly to the data that influenced, impacted, and comprised their work. They also required more streamlined processes. AppSheet provided the answer to the workforce’s needs, enabling IT to create applications that simplified key tasks so mobile workers could get their jobs done faster and better.For example, one BHI client required extensive inspections multiple times a day. Before using AppSheet, a BHI inspector would perform the inspection, return to a computer, record the results from paper to a spreadsheet, copy and paste them into a formatted report in a Google Docs, convert the Doc to a PDF, and email the final inspection report to the customer. This manual process took two hours to complete. Now, using AppSheet, the inspector inputs the results on their mobile device while performing the inspection. As soon as the device connects to the internet, it automatically updates the database with the inspector’s inputs, adds the inspection results to a preformatted report built in Google Docs, and emails the final report as a PDF to the customer. With AppSheet, BHI shortened this inspection process from two hours to six minutes, saving over $50,000 a month in labor.With Google Workspace and AppSheet, BHI has turned into a digital company with real-time data allowing for real-time decisions, collaboration, and transparency in a decentralized environment. Johnny Hacking, Director of ITAn easier software choice for faster resultsBHI also found that building apps with AppSheet is much easier than using other solutions, such as developing with low- or full-code tools or purchasing third-party products. Because AppSheet is a true no-code platform, anyone can learn to build and maintain apps. Since adopting AppSheet, the BHI IT team has become so proficient with the platform that they have eliminated the company’s previous backlog of software needs. Now, when a new site opens up, IT proactively works with the site managers to understand its unique requirements in order to build a custom app. Start to finish, scoping and building this site-specific app typically takes less than a week—compared to months with traditional development platforms. IT team members aren’t the only BHI employees building apps. As Johnny Hacking, BHI’s Director of IT explains, “We have people that aren’t in IT, and when they have an idea we say hey, log into AppSheet, build it out, and then we’ll help out with some final touches on it.” Empowering employees outside of IT to build AppSheet apps has benefited teams across the company. For example, one team on a solar farm construction project needed to perform inspections of an array of specialized technical equipment with which IT was not familiar. In this case, the solar team, being the subject matter experts, simply built the app according to their specifications. All IT had to do was jump in at the end to help finalize the app—the final product was completely customized to the solar team’s very specific needs. This highlights the benefits of no-code development: on-the-ground experts build and prototype job-specific apps and IT puts the finishing touches on the functionality, all while keeping guardrails in place.Using Google Workspace and AppSheet also simplifies BHI’s reliance on third-party software. “Our company divisions are so diverse that they each require different software,” says Hacking. “Plus, if we buy a third-party software, we still have to customize it by getting other software, because they don’t play well together. By replacing this software with AppSheet apps, we save a lot of money. And it’s easy to integrate those apps because on the back end, they’re all connected to Google Sheets.” For the few third-party software products that BHI hasn’t been able to replace, they’ve used Apps Scripts to import the software’s data into Google Sheets, so that their data all lives on one platform. Overall, BHI has been able to free up 10% of its total IT spend by replacing third-party software with Google Workspace and AppSheet apps.Company culture transformed by technology“Because we’ve used Google Workspace and AppSheet and it’s been so successful, people are very willing to use them,” Hacking says. “And for a construction company to gain so much trust in these platforms in such a short period of time—that’s huge. Now we’re at the point where employees are asking, ‘What else can we do?’”Adopting Google Workspace and AppSheet has not only made BHI more productive, but also transformed the company culture. Employees feel empowered to be more innovative and are constantly seeking ways to improve. Simplifying employees’ work has led to a direct boost in morale. The role of IT has also transformed. As Hacking explains, “In just three years of using these technologies, IT has gone from being support overhead to being proactively brought to the table to take part in the business strategy.” Increased IT visibility and culpability has helped solve business problems and led to increased profitability. BHI continues to find new ways to leverage Google Workspace and AppSheet to improve business. In response to COVID, they created a timesheet app that allows employees to clock in without touching a device. Most meetings are now held virtually using Google Meet. Fleet maintenance and repairs are all managed with apps. And, of course, the company has better data and insights than ever. As Hacking puts it, “We’re continuing to stay on the cusp of innovation because of Google Workspace and AppSheet.”Learn more about Google Workspace and AppSheet.Related ArticleIntroducing Google WorkspaceGoogle Workspace includes the productivity apps you know and love—Gmail, Drive, Docs, Meet, and many more—in one location, so you can cre…Read Article
Quelle: Google Cloud Platform

Cloud Acceleration Program: More reasons for SAP customers to migrate to Google Cloud

The arrival of COVID-19 caused massive disruption for companies around the globe and made digital transformation a more urgent priority. That’s why it’s so important that enterprises running their businesses on SAP have the agility, uptime and advanced analytics that Google Cloud can offer. But given the drain on financial and human resources that the pandemic has caused, many organizations are worried about the risks of migrating to the cloud and have considered hitting the brakes on their cloud migrations, just when they should be pressing the gas pedal. Last year we launched the Cloud Acceleration Program (CAP), which has significantly helped SAP customers speed their transitions to the cloud. This first-of-its-kind program empowers customers with solutions from both Google Cloud and our partners to simplify their cloud migrations. Google Cloud is also providing CAP participants with upfront financial incentives to defray infrastructure costs for SAP cloud migrations and help customers ensure that duplicate costs are not incurred during migration. Here’s what customers are saying about the program:“We had plans to migrate to the cloud, but COVID brought into sharp focus the need to accelerate our SAP migration to the cloud. With help from Google Cloud and their Cloud Acceleration Program, we were able to get the skills and the funding to accelerate this effort dramatically. With our new strategic relationship with Google Cloud, we feel significantly better positioned for the future to take advantage of the elastic, scalable computing capabilities and vast amounts of innovation that [are] constantly being developed.”  —Maneesh Gidwani, CIO of FIFCO, a global food, beverage, retail and hospitality organization“The ability to leverage Managecore through the Cloud Acceleration Program dramatically reduced the risk and costs of our SAP migration to Google Cloud. The CAP program enabled Pegasystems to offset the upfront migration expense and significantly expedite our go-live process. With the help of Managecore we were able to focus on running our ERP business operations in the Cloud, rather than the technical elements of the project.”  —David Vidoni, Vice President of IT, Pegasystems, a CRM and BPM software developer company Cloud Acceleration Program Partners step up for SAP customersGoogle Cloud’s strongecosystem of partners are stepping up to the plate more than ever to help customers de-risk their SAP migrations to the cloud. By completing their migrations faster and with minimal cost, customers are now shifting their conversations from concerns about infrastructure and deployment, to higher-value topics such as optimizing costs and driving business value with analytics and machine learning tools.  “As one of the early partner participants in the Cloud Acceleration Program, we have been able to apply these significant resources to help multiple Enterprise customers in their SAP cloud migration engagements. CAP allows HCL to efficiently get tools and resources to the customer to ease their migration risk concerns & costs. Our customers are now engaging to drive strategic conversations on how they can leverage the SAP platform on the Google Cloud to drive new insights, improve business KPIs and create new business models with capabilities such as Google Cloud analytics and machine learning tools.”—Sanjay Singh, Senior VP & Global Head, HCL Google Ecosystem Unit”At NIMBL, we’ve seen both a great deal of interest in Google Cloud by our SAP customers as well as the significant results being realized by those who have deployed. A common concern for many other customers still on this journey – however – continues to be the overall disruption that a cloud migration may cause. Our migration expertise combined with the industry best tools and resources that Cloud Acceleration Program (CAP) offers, helps provide customers with a clear and confident path to the cloud. As a CAP partner, Google Cloud continues to set us up for success with the resources and support we need to deliver these critical customer deployments.”—Sergio Cipolla, Managing Partner, NIMBL Techedge GroupGoogle Cloud is a great place to run SAPAs pressures to transform increase for SAP enterprises, customers are looking to modernize on a smarter cloud.Google Cloud continues to be a great place to run SAP. Like no other for these unprecedented times, our Cloud Acceleration Program gets customers one step closer by reducing the complexities of migration and technical and financial risk management.Contact us to learn more aboutGoogle Cloud for SAP.
Quelle: Google Cloud Platform