• 7,000+ employees unified on a single collaboration platform with Google Workspace

• A single source of truth simplifies device and data management with Admin Console

• Marketing content now produced in minutes, not days, with Gemini

• Store-to-backend connection using Google Sheets enables instant issue resolution

• Streamlines onboarding and administration tasks with no-code AppSheet, freeing up teams to focus on innovation

As Raymond Group marked its 100th birthday in 2025, the diversified conglomerate set out to modernize how 20,000+ employees across 55 countries work together so that the next century of growth could move faster than the last.

Born in 1925 and long trusted for quality and craftsmanship, Raymond has grown from a textile pioneer into a diversified powerhouse – spanning apparel, FMCG, engineering, prophylatics, and a global network of fashion and retail brands. Its vertically integrated textile operations produce some of the finest fabrics in the world, supplying top design houses and leading denim labels. With more than 1,000 exclusive stores and 20,000 retail partners in India alone, its reach extends from major metros to ties IV and V cities.

As the business expanded – from engineered auto-components to premium menswear brands, and custom "Made to Measure" offerings, so did the need for a more modern, secure, and AI-ready digital workplace.

With this in mind, and to power the next century of growth, Raymond's leadership aligned on three priorities: strengthen security and governance, put responsible AI directly into everyday tools, and enable truly real-time collaboration across its textiles, real estate, and engineering businesses.

A brief assessment highlighted opportunities to streamline work and move faster. Meanwhile, security was non-negotiable. "We needed constant control, safe sharing and identity-first protection," says Chief Information Security Officer Lyju Thomas.

Just as critical were AI capabilities integrated directly into daily workflows and collaboration features that genuinely accelerate work instead of digitizing the old way of doing things. For example, email-led workflows could be modernized to free teams to focus on priorities. In fashion and retail operations, connecting store feedback to backend teams while customers are still engaged would unlock quicker outcomes. In the supply chain, giving factories live visibility into demand forecasts would enable faster adjustments.

Google Workspace was selected to meet this brief because of its zero-trust principles, built-in data loss prevention and encryption, and Gemini capabilities inside its core apps – unifying security, collaboration, and AI in one solution. Spearheaded by Work Transformation expert partner Searce, which managed change and adoption across all business units, Raymond completed the organization-wide migration in just six months.

"Transforming how we work means freeing our people from complexity and giving them the confidence that technology will take care of them securely and intelligently," Thomas adds.

Raymond promptly deployed Google Gmail, Calendar, Drive, and Meet to enable smoother communication and  real-time co-editing at the center of day-to-day collaboration.

Working in a single, always-current document eliminated version drift: teams now co-edit the same Sheet or Docs instead of emailing attachments. Meanwhile, demand inputs from frontend teams are updated on the same Sheet that factories use for production decisions, enabling real-time adjustments.

The "old way" of long email threads and ambiguous priorities gave way to lightweight Chat threads and shared files where context, commentary, and decisions live together.

The impact is clearest on the store floor: When a customer asks for a product variant or special handling, staff post in a Chat space integrated with Raymond's CRM. Backend specialists respond in real time, and the salesperson executes while the customer is still in-store, turning collaboration into immediate action and helping close sales on the spot.

Ease of use was as important as features for a multigenerational workforce. A common, intuitive surface accelerates adoption of embedded AI across roles. As the team puts it, people of different generations and skills can contribute without friction. This raised the ceiling on how quickly AI-powered work habits spread.

The shift exhibited immediate benefits, including:

• Faster decisions as cross-functional teams co-author in one place.

• Fewer handoffs and less ambiguity on which version is final.

• In-store issues resolved immediately via Chat + CRM.

• Lower friction in adopting AI because it lives inside familiar tools.

With real-time teamwork established, Raymond layered AI into everyday workflows to compress analysis, content creation, and administration, without adding complexity.

In analytics and finance, teams load peer disclosures into NotebookLM and ask targeted questions; extracting the key signals now takes minutes instead of hours. Because everyone works from the same AI-assisted workspace, interpretations are consistent and executive reviews move faster.

In creative and marketing, content that once required 24 to 48 hours across multiple review cycles is produced in minutes. Teams generate images and short videos with Gemini-powered Nano Banana and Veo to build timely, in-house campaigns and respond to customer trends quickly. "The time the idea gets incubated to the time the idea gets executed is now moving to minutes," says Group Chief Digital & Information Officer, Ravi Hudda. This has helped in bringing marketing more agile and responsive to customers and, in select cases, reducing external agency spend.

In HR and operations, Gemini accelerates routine communications, while AppSheet streamlines cost-exception approvals and visitor management without code. Apps Script automates bulk event bookings and birthday reminders — small automations that add up to measurable time saved across departments.

For security and IT operations, "Google Workspace simplifies user, device, and data management with a single control plane," explains Thomas. "Less time on administration, faster onboarding, better visibility, and stronger policy enforcement — all of which allows IT to focus more on innovation and less on routine operations." That simplicity is essential for scaling AI responsibly. Consistent policies and centralized management mean new teams can adopt AI capabilities quickly – without compromising security.

With the customer-centric approach of Google Cloud and assistance from the Searce team on change management and ongoing consulting, Raymond successfully achieved accelerated deployment and adoption of modern productivity tools across diverse roles and locations. It is now standardizing these wins into department-wide practices: codifying the "minutes-not-hours" motion where it matters most, and deepening Gemini adoption inside tools employees already use.

As the company looks ahead, the focus remains the same: keep work secure, keep teams in one live source of truth, and keep turning decisions into action at the pace customers expect.