NGK Spark Plugs: a Google G Suite success story

NGK Spark Plugs is one of the world's leading automotive suppliers, specializing in the areas of ignition and sensor technologies. With its headquarters in Japan, 41 subsidiaries, 29 production facilities, and four technical centers, NGK Spark Plugs is a truly global company with more than 16,000 employees.

Better coordination and collaboration with Google Cloud solutions

While the staff at the headquarters in Japan had already been able to gain experience with Google G Suite for several years, the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, and Africa region) was working with a mail server that was being maintained by the company's own IT department and it was becoming increasingly outdated, even approaching obsolete.

With this project of implementing G-Suite, our objective was to improve communication between employees spread across several continents, to support cross-team collaboration, and to enable rapid decision-making regardless of location. We also needed to standardize the IT infrastructure across all of the many different locations. It proved to be a complex project, managing different working cultures, infrastructures, and time zones during the implementation process.

Global rollout of G Suite

The branches in the EMEA region were encouraged by the positive experience that the headquarters in Japan were having, and so G Suite was quickly adopted as a modern way of working together. After a pilot phase, the implementation project was officially launched at the end of 2018.

//SEIBERT/MEDIA is a German Google partner, and so we supported the introduction of G Suite in NGK Spark Plugs' EMEA offices. We developed a changeover management plan jointly with NGK that fit within appropriate technical requirements in order to make the change as smooth as possible for all employees in all locations.

"The combination of the NGK Project Management Methodology with the three-step Google G Suite implementation process with Google Squad (project team), Google Guides (early adopters from the specialist departments), and the final go-live with end users significantly contributed to the fact that we were able to complete the project in time, scope and budget".

--- Tim Völker, Head of PMO EMEA, NGK SPARK PLUG EUROPE GmbH

Project scope: training, migration, communication

//SEIBERT/MEDIA took over Google guides training, migration preparation, and on-site employee training all within the scope of the implementation project. The entire process was accompanied by an internal communication campaign, including an introduction video, posters, handouts, tutorials, info sites, and sharing best practices.

Cooperation leads to more efficient, more effective results

We've significantly simplified the daily organization of internal and external communication by converting all email traffic to Gmail. By using Hangouts Chat, internal communication between employees has now been accelerated, ensuring more intensive cooperation among the different locations.

With the help of Google Calendar, Jamboards, Hangouts Meet, and the appropriate Hangouts-Meet hardware kits, remote meeting planning has been greatly simplified. Employees are more willing to have time-saving video chat meetings than before because now their software and hardware work simply and effectively. More advanced functions, such as delegating calendars and email accounts, now allow for even closer cooperation between assistants and supervisors.

We've also cut costs: by eliminating the need for an on-site document management infrastructure, costs have been reduced. At the same time, documents can be shared more easily among employees or, in the future, with external parties.

"By introducing Google G Suite, we were able to extensively modernize our IT infrastructure. We merged numerous locally operated mail and file servers at different locations in the EMEA region. This has created a powerful foundation upon which we can and will build additional services".
--- Karl Schüle, Head of Infrastructure EMEA, NGK SPARK PLUG EUROPE GmbH

True to the motto "We Together", G Suite has brought the entire NGK Spark Plugs EMEA team closer together.

"The introduction of Google G-Suite has permanently changed the meeting culture at NGK Spark Plugs EMEA. With our Hangouts Meet Hardware Kits and the collaborative Google Suite tools, interactive meetings can be held as if we were in the same room, even if there are hundreds or even thousands of kilometres between us. This is how we can make the EMEA region a true depiction of our vision of "WeTogether"".
--- Damien Germès, President & CEO NGK Spark Plugs Europe GmbH, Regional President EMEA & Corporate Officer

//SEIBERT/MEDIA is your partner for G Suite and Google cloud solutions

Are you interested in modern collaboration - in the automotive industry or elsewhere - using Google Cloud and G Suite? Contact us today if you have any questions or want to know more: We are an official Google Cloud Partner and would be happy to advise you - without obligation - on the introduction, licensing and productive use of Google G Suite!

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Further information

Why large organizations are choosing Google G Suite
Google G Suite: Chat and Meeting Solutions
Google G Suite - the affordable office alternative
An alternative to Office 365: How Google is positioning itself with G Suite Enterprise

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