Australia Blog
News and notes from Google Down Under
Dick Smith Goes Google
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
As you'd imagine, staff at Dick Smith have a real passion for technology. They not only want to keep customers up-to-date with the latest innovations and gadgets — they want to use them too! This is key to our culture and as our company evolves we want to ensure that our highly mobile, tech savvy workforce have the flexibility to work in ways which suit them.
With more than 4,500 staff in 323 stores across Australia and New Zealand, we have a lot of people to communicate with. It’s always been hard for us to keep in touch with casual staff who make up a significant portion of our workforce, as they don’t have corporate issued devices or email accounts. And even with our permanent staff, our IT team has grappled with managing the rise of personal mobile devices at work. We have also been looking for ways to improve collaboration because, until now, communication in stores has been a hierarchical one-way process through the manager.
When we looked for solutions to these challenges, we decided on Google because it was a great cultural fit, as well as being intuitive, easy to maintain and packed with features.One of the best things about everyone having a Google account is that all our staff will now have IT identities so we can communicate with them and they can be involved. And as many of our staff already use Gmail as their personal email, the training time is really minimal.
The sharing and collaboration features built into Google Apps and Google Docs in particular are a real plus too. Now it doesn't matter if our teams are in Sydney or Wellington, they'll be able to share and collaborate on documents in real-time, faster and more easily than ever before.
Building community and fostering a collaborative culture is another significant benefit of going Google. We’re looking forward to using Google forms to get staff feedback and comments via regular staff engagement surveys and the integration of YouTube videos means that when our CEO has an important announcement we can record this for all our staff to review at a time that suits them. This is a great way to overcome some of the logistical challenges of having a casual workforce working across different time zones.
We’re excited about extending this approach to our interaction with suppliers and partners and will use Google Hangouts to reduce the time and cost of travel so our people can get on with running our business.
Guest post by Linda Venables, Director of IT, Dick Smith
Labels
20%
3D
AdSense
AdWords
AdWords Express
Agencies
agencies adwords TV
Analytics
android
announcements
antarctica
App Marketplace
apps
art
Australia
Australian IT
big data
Big Query
blogging
blogs
books
broadband
business
calendar
campaign management
careers
CeBIT
chrome
Chromebox
cloud computing
competition
computer science
conversion tracking
creativity
currents
cyber safety
cycling
dashboard
Developer Day
developers
digital advertising
digital economy
Display
display ads
Doodles
drive
ebooks
education
Election
energy
enhanced campaigns
Enterprise
entrepreneurship
environment
Equatorgate
Fairfax
film
filtering
G'day Google
Getting Aussie Business Online
Gmail
gone google
gonegoogle
google
Google App Engine
Google Apps
Google Apps for Business
Google Apps for Education
Google Art Project
Google Australia
Google Chrome
Google Code
Google docs
Google Drive
Google Earth
google maps
Google Places
google play
Google Search
Google Serve
Google Sites
Google Talk
Google Trends
Google+
Googlers and culture
government
green
Guest blogger
guest speakers
Hangouts
HR
iGoogle
information
innovation
internet
internet industry
IT
Julia Gillard
language
life
local
maps
measurement
media industry
mobile
Moderator
movies
music
navigation
NBN
netball
new features
news
NGEN
non-profit
online advertising
online safety
open government
open source
Partnerships
picasa
play
Policy
politics
prime minister
privacy
prizes
PSI
publishers
puppies
real estate
Reception
recruitment
removals
rentals
reporting
research
Running
scholarships
schools
science
search
search ads
Security
shopping
sitelinks
sketchup
small business
smartphones
SMB
street view
student programs
students
Stupid Google employee tricks
Summer of Code
Support
survey
sydney
symphony
tablet
technology
Themes
tips
training
transit
translate
transparency
transport
Universities
vault
voicesearch
Wave
women
workplace culture
YouTube
YouTube Live
zeitgeiest
Archive
2019
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2018
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2017
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2016
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2015
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
2014
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2013
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2012
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2011
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2010
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2009
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2008
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2007
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Feed
Follow @googledownunder
Give us feedback in our
Product Forums
.
