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FRANK WEIGEL: Hello, and welcome to our session
on modernizing your frontline workforce with Google
Workspace.
My name is Frank Weigel, and welcome to the session.
We'll have Rhys from Airbus join us a little bit later.
But for now, let's dive right in.
We'll talk today, first, about what
digital transformation of frontline workers is
and why it matters.
Then we'll hear from Rhys on how Airbus
is using Google Workspace to put this theory into practice.
And finally, we'll talk a little bit
about how Workspace and AppSheet can help
you to do exactly the same.
So let's dive right in.
A recent VC firm study estimated that about 80%
of the global workforce are frontline workers,
and that largely, their technology needs are unmet.
To fill the technology void, well, these employees
are often using unofficial or unmanaged apps,
such as WhatsApp, SMS to get processes done.
And it really ends up being another form of shadow IT.
Now let's talk more about who these frontline workers may
be in your organization and take a look
at how they can benefit from more technology
to help digitally transform this crucial aspect of your company.
So frontline workers really are the backbone of a company.
They literally are the first people
customers connect with, the people who build the products,
fulfill an order, or answer the service calls.
And so good examples are nurses, retail associates,
of course, call center teams, support technicians,
or front desk registration staff to just name a few.
And these deskless workers typically
lack dedicated computers provided for their work.
And so personal smartphones, for example,
become often the easiest way for them
to engage in digital transformation
and partake in company processes.
Now modernizing and digitally transforming
those frontline worker processes really
is a win-win-win across the company.
Why?
Well, the frontline workers--
they are the end users.
And so they benefit from a standardized platform
to communicate and collaborate and engaging digitally
on business processes.
And they themselves-- frontline employees-- want this.
And besides improving effectiveness,
a common communication platform, of course,
also creates a better sense of community and inclusivity.
Now the business leaders also, of course,
benefit from modern tools.
Here for them transforming the frontline worker experience
means that these digitally transformed processes allow
them to plan more efficiently, more easily
introduce new business processes, or adapt existing
ones based on feedbacks or changing needs,
crucial in the Agile world that we live in.
And last but not least by any means, IT professionals
and leadership-- they benefit as well.
With a common platform for frontline workers
that provides integrated governance and integrates
with the rest of the systems the company uses,
they do not have to worry about uncontrolled shadow IT.
Instead, they can make sure data access is secure, compliant,
and well governed-- crucial in today's world.
So to summarize, providing frontline workers modern tools
built on a common communication and collaboration platform
really makes your company more competitive.
It enables streamlined communications,
which results in more efficient work and better collaboration,
of course.
And digitally transformed processes allow employees
to focus on more strategic and value-added work,
with less focus on tedious and error-prone paperwork
or other ways of communication that have a lot of overhead.
And lastly, when well done, it empowers your mobile workforce
to easily use different devices, whether phone, tablet,
or computers.
Everyone can get the flexibility to choose the device best
suited for the task at hand.
They can use the same tools regardless
of which device or form factor they are on.
And this improved competitiveness
doesn't just end with more efficiency and collaboration,
though.
Most importantly, great employee experiences
also lead very directly to great customer experiences.
And that's something we all know has become really important
to company success these days.
Here you see a recent study from Forrester Research
underlining exactly this point.
The importance of customer obsession
is particularly important, of course, for frontline workers,
as they are, as we said, literally
the first line of contact for most of your customers.
And so having them be obsessed about the customer is crucial.
Employee experiences help.
Given the challenges to train, onboard, and retain
frontline workers, equipping them with the right technology
helps support their growth and development,
and ultimately will help grow your business.
So let's take a look at a real-life example of frontline
workers directly benefiting from modern tools--
in this case, a very cool use case-- building planes
more efficiently.
So very excited to have Airbus join us to share more
on how they are using Google Workspace and now
a no-code application build AppSheet
to transform the frontline worker experiences.
Airbus, of course, is a manufacturing company
designing, building, and selling civil and military aerospace
products worldwide.
They have about 200,000 users working at sites
all over the world.
They moved to Google Workspace in 2019.
And joining us now from Toulouse is Rhys Phillips
who is the Google Workspace Change and Adoption leader
at Airbus Digital Workspace.
So Rhys, over to you to tell us more.
RHYS PHILLIPS: Thanks very much, Frank.
Really great to be speaking to you here from Toulouse at Cloud
Next today.
And indeed, as you hinted at, Airbus
took a decision over four years ago now to move to the cloud,
and in particular, to move to Google
Workspace for our employee collaboration and productivity
tool set.
And for Airbus, I would describe this as a step into the future,
with a really high potential to transform our processes
and our ways of working.
Now we wanted to establish the next stage
in our culture of collaboration to empower our colleagues
to focus their time and energy on things
that really matter to them, to allow
them to work from any location.
And of course, that was super important
during the last couple of years with the COVID pandemic.
But also, we wanted to use this as an opportunity
to help us become a real data-driven company
with transparent access to all the knowledge
available to everyone who needs it when they need it.
Now many of us at Airbus, like myself, are desk-based.
We're working in an office most of the time.
Others are always on the go and needing to work remotely.
But of course, Airbus makes planes,
helicopters, satellites.
And they can't be built without our frontline workers,
our operators on the shop floor.
And so today we'd like to explore that a little bit.
So joining me now from our Broughton plant
up in North Wales, where we make all of our wings,
is Paul Kilmister, Head of UK Supply Chain
Logistics here at Airbus.
Paul, thanks very much for joining me.
PAUL KILMISTER: Nice to see you, Rhys.
Thanks for having me.
RHYS PHILLIPS: Now Paul, you're part of the plant leadership
team in Broughton.
You're responsible for the flow of all the parts
into the factory and also for the delivery of the wings
to our final assembly lines.
Quite an important part of the aircraft manufacturing process.
Most planes don't get very far with the wings, right?
But I guess most people watching haven't had the chance
to see what the shop floor looks like at an aircraft
manufacturing plant.
So could you give us an overview for those
that haven't experienced a shop floor environment
within aircraft manufacturing?
PAUL KILMISTER: Yeah, sure I can.
So the bulk of Broughton is made up
by delivering wings for our two big programs, what
we call single R, which is our 320 and 321 wings,
and our long-range program.
So that's our A330 and A350.
You can imagine that because the programs vary in age,
the level of automation in those programs varies.
The A350 facility we have, built only a few years ago,
is a far more automated setup than the traditional jig setup
that we have in our single R product.
The way that we build a wing is we bring all of the components
together.
And for single R, we actually build the wing
in a vertical orientation.
This is where we bring our core structure of the wing together.
Don't forget, this is a real core component.
Not only does it make the aircraft fly,
but it holds all the fuel as well for the aircraft.
Once we take that wing out of jig,
we then perform what we call the equipping, which
is to add all of the fuel systems, the hydraulic systems,
and the flight control surfaces.
And then we deliver it to our customer.
RHYS PHILLIPS: And what has the acceptance of Google Workspace
been like at the plant?
PAUL KILMISTER: To be very open with you,
I have been quite pleasantly surprised by the adoption rate
in Broughton.
Like with all change, there was a degree of hesitancy at first.
But I think people have really understood
the benefits of Google and the step change
that it's created for us in terms of collaboration.
The one thing I think that has been a step change for us
is the communication tools that have
come with the Google platform.
For example, Google Chat now--
super impressive the impact that that's made on the shop floor,
and how quickly we're to be able to get around particular topics
and abnormalities in the plant.
RHYS PHILLIPS: Could you describe a benefit
that you've already seen on the shop floor
as a result of Google Workspace deployment?
And do you see some opportunities
for further automation with tools
such as AppSheet in the future?
PAUL KILMISTER: Yeah, sure.
The most obvious one that jumps out for me
is what we call abnormality management.
Maybe sounds a bit more dramatic than what it is.
But when we have an abnormality in the plant-- that
could be a missing part or a quality
escape from a supplier-- because we're
working in a tact environment, the importance
of gathering the right team around the situation
in a timely manner is critical to the success
of continuing to manufacture.
When we start using collaboration tools like Google
Chat, particularly the Chat groups, the capability
to assign actions immediately, create
Meets to be able to bring the right MFT around
to be able to solve the problem, this
is really, really beneficial for us.
I think also, when we look at some
of the other big advantages, we've
started to use Data Studio in a big way.
The capability to be able to visualize where
we are in terms of performance, to be
able to see that live really gives the leadership team
the opportunity to be able to focus in and make sure we're
tackling the right topics.
I would say thirdly, one of the evolving and up-and-coming
areas we have is on Apps Script and AppSheet.
We see a lot of advantages in these applications,
particularly with regards to process confirmation.
So you can imagine, we're confirming
the way we build our wing inside of our ERP, inside of SAP.
But there are many other process confirmations
that we put in place to make sure
that our target conditions are met,
that the environment that our teams work in stays safe
and stays clean.
And we're starting to look at a number of Apps
Script with a Google Form and Data Studio
outputs to be able to make sure that we're completing
our target condition process confirmation
in a timely manner with real good action follow-up.
RHYS PHILLIPS: Paul, thanks very much for joining me today.
PAUL KILMISTER: Thanks, Rhys.
Take care.
RHYS PHILLIPS: Now Paul talked there
about where he could see actually helping
in the future at Broughton.
But I know at our plant in Hamburg,
where our Customer Definition Center
is responsible for working with airlines to define their needs,
AppSheet is already being used in the shop floor environment.
And here you can see the team's logistics app,
how it helps them to get an overview of all
their deliveries, their open inspections, and the inventory
of all the parts they deal with.
And here you can see the operator
scanning a QR code on a part in order
to find it in the database.
They can then scan a QR code on the wall of the location
they're at in order to make sure that that part is
booked to the correct location.
So it minimizes the chance of typos
or the wrong location being selected from a dropdown box.
And they then able to access detailed information on all
of the shipments that are expected via an information
set that's stored in a Shared Drive, of course,
due to the strong integration of AppSheet with Google Drive.
And that delivered material can then
be rebooked via another QR code scan.
And because the app works out-of-the-box on a mobile
device, it was actually really easy to build in capability
to call the receiver and to email the requester without
having to leave the application.
So this kind of integration, where everything is in one
place-- they don't have to then look for the phone number
in Google Contacts, for example--
this just makes day-to-day tasks a lot easier for those guys
on the shop floor.
And for me, what's really great about
this is that this application was developed
by just one person over a couple of days, a task that previously
would have taken several months to achieve
by several developers.
So a really, really strong benefit there.
So yeah, in conclusion, Frank, I'd
say Google Workspace and AppSheet-- really helping
to make a difference here at Airbus, not only in the office,
but huge opportunities for our frontline workers, too.
And Frank, with that, it's back to you.
FRANK WEIGEL: Thanks so much, Rhys.
That was really awesome to see App Sheet in action
and helping you to build airplanes.
And those videos showing a wing being built--
come on.
That was just really awesome to see.
Thank you so much for sharing that.
Now building atop some of the points
that Airbus already brought up, let's look
at why Workspace is such a strong help in this area.
So only Google Workspace brings together
the communication and collaboration
apps that are loved by literally billions of people.
Of course, because billions of people use it,
employees will have used some of these products already
and be familiar with them right out of the gate.
Workspace provides the right tool for everyone
to accomplish their goals, whether it
is for frontline workers, as we discussed today,
or for deskless workers or information workers, or even
consumers, video meetings in Workspace
really help foster a more human connection.
So everyone feels included.
And there's equity across experiences through spaces.
You can have open and transparent communication
so everyone in a group can contribute and access
info for a specific topic.
And of course, you can digitize and automate processes
by making your own app in AppSheet that integrated
directly into Workspace.
And just like you saw at Airbus, how
it can help transform the experience across the company.
Now let's dive a little bit deeper into AppSheet,
our no-code app-building solution that you saw demoed.
So with AppSheet, you can very easily
transform these experiences by creating
a custom app that digitally transforms
that specific experience.
Now what it fundamentally changes
is it's using a no-code approach.
And thanks to that no-code approach,
building apps now is fast.
And creators don't need to be programmers
anymore, very much unlike the traditional tools.
And so anyone with a good understanding
of a business process can now easily create an app.
And it doesn't matter whether the data is
in a spreadsheet or a database.
You can access it and build an app on top of it.
And so also very excited to share.
We will be extending the app types
that we have to easily create no-code chat apps.
So everyone can interact with one of these custom apps
that you build directly inside of chat, where they already
are.
That's where they're spending their time
to communicate today.
And similarly, we already have the ability
to take an AppSheet app and embed it
directly into a Gmail email.
So you can interactively work with the app that's
inside of an email, making it super easy to engage folks that
are already working on something in the surface
in the email tool where they already
are spending their time.
And so one more aspect-- we talked about the need
to integrate.
With AppSheet, you have a set of connectors
that make it easy to connect with other systems.
And it's exciting to hear that we just launched the ability
to directly invoke Apps Script from within AppSheet apps.
And so that allows for even deeper integration
and customization of the experience
into Workspace beyond what I just talked about,
what we had all along.
So great functionality to check out.
And crucially for frontline workers,
we talked about the importance of form factor.
All AppSheet apps provide unified experience
across desktop and mobile experience.
So they work seamlessly across devices and form factors.
And it makes a really great fit not just for frontline workers,
but anybody who is-- information workers with a desk or laptop
as well.
So to close, a quick reminder why it is worthwhile
investing into digitally transforming your frontend
workers.
In a recent study from "Harvard Business Review,"
Gallup Research and Axonify-- they
found that 91% of organizations using modern frontline worker
tools have more productive employees.
70% of them generate more revenue.
81% of them are more competitive,
and 16% having more loyal employees.
So wouldn't you want your company to be one of those?
You can be.
So don't leave your frontline workforce behind.
Instead, empower them with modern tools like Workspace
and Google AppSheet that meet them where they are.
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