WeWork saves more than $1M every year by consolidating team collaboration on Google Chat

As a result of our successful Chat migration, WeWork now saves over $1M a year compared to our previous platform.

Snapshot: With over 600 locations worldwide, WeWork provides flexible office spaces for everyone from freelancers to Fortune 500s. Learn how the company:

• Streamlined communication within its global network by switching from its previous workplace collaboration tool to Google Chat

• Migrated 400 million messages across thousands of channels to Chat in less than two months in partnership with CloudFuze

• Saved over $1M a year compared to its previous solution

Origin story

In 2010, WeWork saw an opportunity to design a different kind of office — one that championed a new, flexible way of work. Our model, which offers flexible workspace solutions for individuals and businesses, quickly resonated with a generation seeking a more inspiring, creative, and connected work experience. WeWork's collaborative spaces provide an environment where everyone from freelancers to Fortune 500s can come together, share ideas, and push boundaries. This focus on connection extends beyond the physical workspace to the way we collaborate across our global network.

When it comes to communication, we realized we had redundant technologies, cost inefficiencies, and siloed systems that didn’t connect. The fact that we have more than 250 external partners who maintain our spaces — many of whom communicated with us via different platforms and require ongoing communication — further exacerbated these challenges. We needed to consolidate these channels to streamline communication and reduce costs across our organization, so we started to explore Google Chat. Here’s how this simple yet effective instant messaging tool has transformed the way we collaborate at WeWork.

The switch to Google Chat

Our priorities for a unified communications platform were simple. First, it needed to be cost effective and reduce redundant solutions to help optimize our IT spending. It also needed to maintain seamless communication with our external partners worldwide. Lastly, the new tool needed to integrate with the applications and platforms we already used, chiefly Google Workspace, to enable users to collaborate more effectively.

As we evaluated Chat, we discovered that it met all of these core needs. Since it’s included with our existing Workspace licenses, WeWork would incur no additional costs by switching to Chat, and we’d save over $1 million a year by retiring our third-party solution. Chat also connects easily to essential apps and integrations — such as GitHub, PagerDuty, Jira, and Giphy — which allows us to securely communicate with external partners and get work done.

Once we decided that Chat was the right solution, we turned our attention to another pressing concern: how to migrate our existing channels and conversations. WeWork had 400 million messages across thousands of channels that contained historical context for projects that we couldn't leave behind. Up against a short timeline, we needed help to carry out the migration and ensure a smooth transition.

The Google Workspace team introduced us to CloudFuze, a company that makes it easy, quick, and cost effective to migrate data between cloud environments with 100% replication and zero downtime. Anthony Raymond, Head of Strategic Partnerships at CloudFuze, and his team rose to the occasion and successfully migrated all of our conversations in under two months.

"Our goal is to enable businesses to choose the communications platform of their choice. With  our Slack to Google Chat migration service, we have done just that,” Raymond says. “Businesses can seamlessly migrate to Google Chat without losing any important historical data along the way."

Looking ahead

As a result of our successful migration to Chat, WeWork now saves over $1 million a year compared to our previous platform. Chat is built into the Workspace ecosystem, integrating with the rest of the products we use every day, such as Google Calendar, Docs, Drive, Meet, Sheets, and Slides. It also enables us to connect with external partners and integrate third-party apps, making it easier than ever to maintain the flow of communication with the people who manage our global locations.

By consolidating our communication onto a single, integrated platform with Chat, WeWork has streamlined operations, saved costs, and future-proofed our collaborative environment. As we continue to expand and evolve, Chat's scalability and adaptability will ensure our global network stays seamlessly connected, fostering the kind of dynamic and collaborative workspaces that will continue to inspire our members.