To achieve this goal, RLE’s CEO, Ralf Laufenberg, is prioritizing building a modern IT infrastructure for the company. In 2018, he hired CIO Thomas Staab to instigate the changes needed to update RLE’s IT provision. “When I first arrived at RLE a year and a half ago, it was clear things had to change,” says Thomas. “Like many companies involved in the car industry in Germany, things were still being done the old-fashioned way, but that was creating many challenges. We needed to find better ways of working together, and with our clients.”

After putting together a team to lead the company’s digital transformation, Thomas defined a list of action points to take the company forward. As well as enabling its employees to work more flexibly and effectively, RLE wanted to open up opportunities for advanced software development. Working with Google to use Google Workspace and Google Cloud offered a comprehensive solution.

“The automotive market is changing rapidly,” says Thomas. “Something new is appearing every month, and software development is becoming increasingly important. Our choice of cloud provider needs to tell the world: we understand the future.”

RLE employees based in Germany, the US, and Spain now use Docs, Slides, and Sheets, and are able to work on the same document at the same time from different locations. “The Cloud Search function for Drive and Gmail is particularly useful for our employees, as some of them have been with us for a long time. One had more than 80 GB of emails!” says Patrick.

Effective data storage is important for RLE because it is responsible for storing information on its clients’ designs. “If an OEM comes to us and wants to benchmark a new model against one of their old models, we need to be able to pull up the files for a car from 20 years ago,” explains Thomas. “Before, that would have taken two or three people up to three days to collate. Now we can deliver the package of relevant files within 24 hours.”

Version control is also a critical issue, since it’s crucial that clients receive the correct version of presentations and design files. As employees now work on a single file together, Thomas says it’s much easier to avoid mistakes such as sending the wrong version to the client. “We need to be sure we always deliver the right file version, to maintain client trust,” he says. “It’s much easier to do that when we’re all working on a single document on Google Drive.”

Creating a more flexible and more attractive workplace

Switching to Google Workspace has changed what day-to-day work looks like for everyone, from executives to engineers. The executive team is now able to join the weekly management meeting scheduled through Calendar via Google Meet, which has led to an increase in efficiency. “Before, our morning management meetings could last for two or three hours,” says Thomas. “People were delayed in traffic and arrived stressed. Now, we all join via Google Meet and the meeting culture is much better. We all join on time, and by 10:00 AM, we are finished and ready to start the day.”

Organizing meetings through Google Meet and Meet Hardware, and bringing together ideas using Jamboards** also makes working with teams both internally and externally much simpler and reduces the amount of travel employees have to undertake.

Home working and working on the go has also become an option for employees, facilitated by Gmail and Mobile Management. “People tell me they just love the user experience of working on Gmail, and they can now work from their own devices, which they couldn’t do before,” says Thomas. Being able to offer flexible working is important for RLE as it is looking to attract the best talent. “In the big cities like Berlin and Cologne, there’s a big demand for software engineers, and it’s very difficult to attract the top developers,” says Patrick. “If we can enable them to work flexibly, that makes working with us a more attractive proposition.”

Working with a cloud-based infrastructure has also transformed the IT team itself. “There was always a lot of pressure on the IT team, as we are a relatively small team of 12 or so people,” says Patrick. “When we had physical servers, it could take weeks to order, ship, and install them. If there was an issue on the other side of the world, one of our team had to get on a plane and fly over there. Now, we can add extra capacity with a click and resolve issues remotely. We also no longer need a member of staff working exclusively on managing updates and patches.”

Designing tools for the future of the automotive industry

As well as implementing Google Workspace to improve employee productivity and deliver faster client service, RLE plans to use Google Cloud to build innovative new products. That includes an online ecommerce platform that will enable OEM clients to put together car packages to their own specifications online. “At the moment, this is all done in the old-fashioned way, through client meetings,” explains Thomas. “The platform will make it much easier for clients to place their orders and will offer transparency on the process, as they will be able to track key milestones.”

In addition, after trialing VMs on Compute Engine for a DMZ subnetwork, they’re also planning to use VMs to run a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) in the future that enables their engineers to work flexibly. “Previously, they were tied to a workstation, as they need a lot of computational power,” says Thomas. “Now they can work from wherever they need to be, including working on-site with client teams where necessary.” RLE is able to save money on workstation infrastructure because, when the VDI are not required, it can reduce VM capacity and save on costs.

“We’re one of the first automotive companies in Germany to move to the cloud,” Thomas says. “With the support of Google Cloud, we can become a modern engineering company that is able to grow globally. It will definitely generate opportunities for many new projects in the future.”