Business
To many traditional PR, ad and marketing agencies, the Internet is just another medium, but to Abraham Harrison, it is another culture—one that calls for a completely new approach to marketing. "Abraham Harrison specializes in everything from blogger outreach to influencer identification, brand protection and social media consulting for clients like Friendster, Deutsche Telekom, and T. Rowe Price." "Ten percent of the people in the world influence the other 90 percent in terms of purchases and other decisions. What many companies do not realize is that the people who are tipping the scales are increasingly the world's online denizens, and they may not have fancy titles," explains CEO Mark Harrison.
Approach
When it comes to running its own business, Abraham Harrison remains true to its Internet-centric roots. Besides the two founders, the team consists of 14 contractors spread across the United States, Europe, India and Africa, who often move from one place to another for extended periods of time.
Solution
Whether they are vacationing in the Alps or living on the island of Mauritius, Abraham Harrison employees stay in touch and collaborate using Google Apps Premier Edition. "I plan to move from Washington D.C. to Berlin for a while, but it really doesn't matter because of our virtual work environment based on Google Apps," says President and COO Chris Abraham. "Google Apps gives us a structured, integrated way to stay connected and collaborate."
Abraham initially made the decision to use Google Apps based on Gmail's spam protection, generous storage quotas and ease of sifting through messages. Although Gmail was the initial allure, the extended team has quickly embraced Google Apps as an integrated communication and collaboration system. The company uses Docs & Spreadsheets to help staff track hours as well as create and collaborate on strategy documents, presentations and other client materials. Google Calendar allows everyone to work flexible hours while still saying coordinated, despite being spread across 10 time zones. Using Google Talk, employees exchange insights during conference calls, much like passing notes across a table to share ideas. And the initially unseen benefits of Gmail are becoming apparent; Abraham Harrison is often brought in to work on accounts under the auspices of larger marketing, PR or ad firms and Google Apps makes it easy and automatic for the firm to send out perfectly branded email addresses (mark@largerfirm.com).
"The integration and functionality of Google Apps just keeps getting better," says Abraham. "I am always amazed when someone sends me an email from Microsoft Outlook or another application and it gets inserted as a temporary event on my Google Calendar."
Several employees also access Google Apps not just on their PCs, but also from mobile phones and other devices like the BlackBerry. "I can be out hiking in the Alps, and still stay in touch on the work front," says Harrison. "I even use Google Gears to help ensure that when I lose Internet connectivity on a train, I don't lose any data."
Results
For Abraham Harrison, Google Apps Premier Edition gives staff powerful communication and collaboration tools that have brought productivity to the next level. Google Apps is bringing an expert team of relationship marketing experts together from around the world to produce results for clients. "Google Apps are beautifully designed, and have definitely been a factor in our rapid expansion," says Harrison. "We're big Google fans, and look forward to even bigger and better enhancements to Google Apps."
Google has also helped lower the cost of operations, says Faulkingham, who observes, "Google Apps is incredibly robust and can handle a large volume of emails, and at $50 per user, we're saving tens of thousands each year in both hard and soft costs."
About Google Apps
Google Apps is a suite of applications that includes Gmail (webmail services), Google Calendar (shared calendaring), Google Talk (instant messaging and voice over IP), and a Start Page for creating a customizable homepage on a specific domain. Google Apps offers editions tailored to specific customer needs, including a Standard Edition (ideal for family domains), Education Edition (K-12 schools, colleges and universities), Premier Edition (businesses of all sizes) and Partner Edition (Internet Service Providers and portals).
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