QUESTION: When selecting a productivity solution for your organization, shouldn't your primary selection criteria be answering: does this solution help improve productivity?

ANSWER: Of course it should! But there are a few challenges as you start to look for information to support your decision making. 

1. Marketing: A quick search on either company's website and you will find a number of large, reputable, Canadian companies who have made the decision to invest in business productivity solutions, some have selected Microsoft and some Google. 

When you read the case studies published on their websites, both solutions (G Suite & Office 365) sound pretty amazing. Here are a couple of snippets:

From Google:  As part of it's customer-centric attitude and mandate to transform banking, ATB launched a bold transformation initiative powered by G Suite. As a result, ATB is driving innovation, optimizing workflows and business processes, and enabling more positive customer interactions. 

From Microsoft: Canada's Capstone Mining wanted to share information more efficiently, reliably, and affordably across remote locations. Capstone digitally transformed its business environment by moving from on-premises datacenters to the cloud with Microsoft Office 365 and the Microsoft Azure platform. As a result, the company has access to data and mission-critical applications anytime, anywhere. And by eliminating on-premises infrastructure, Capstone is on track to save US$6 million over three years. Most importantly, employees have more time for activities that add more business value. 

Sounds good, right? Yes, but the marketing team's responsibility is to create compelling case studies, so does that help you decide? Not really. It is nice for credibility, but not as a sole source of data for making a decision.

2. "Other" information: When you search the world wide web, there is a lot of information. Some of it is really great, but a lot of it really overwhelming. Furthermore, it seemed there was a lot of information that focused the solution from an IT perspective, or strictly on cost or licensing complexity. While these are things to consider, let's make sure we weigh the pros and cons of the productivity features and functionality first! Does it matter if it is a cheaper solution if it can't do what you need it to do?

3. Apples to Apples: We found a shocking amount of information that seemed helpful, but when we took a closer look, it wasn't an apples to apples comparison of the two solutions. And while that is sometimes hard given the various tiers and price points, we just felt that there had to be a better way to understand how to compare G Suite and Office 365 side by side.  We get questions all the time, and if we are expected to provide guidance and expert insights to our customers about points of differentiation and points of parity, we need to be able to provide this comparison.  

And that became our challenge. Could we create a non-marketing, productivity forward, apples to apples comparison of Google G Suite and Microsoft Office 365?  I think we did. Take a look and let us know what you think. And if you have already made a decision, we would love to hear: what were your reasons for choosing one vs the other? And now that you have decided, let us know how it is working out for your team!