The German advertising agency Scholz & Friends are now running on Google Apps.

Google Apps is now the standard communication and office suite for over 1,000 employees saving the German-speaking advertising agency thousands of Euro a year on software licenses and hardware. However price was not the main reason for the move to Google but the real savings Scholz & Friends achieved by staff working more effectively.

Using Google Apps Scholz & Friends are now able to offer it’s users anytime, anywhere access to applications, databases and e-mail. Users are now working in a more collaborative way as they simultaneously access data and documents – regardless of where they are in the world.

Software is no longer installed and maintained on each device, with the additional management costs that brings, but hosted in a secure online environment.

It is important for any organisation that outsources to know that it’s data is secure and falls within governmental restrictions on data protection. So it is good to know that Google complies with German and EU data protection laws under the Safe Harbor certification.