My advice here won't be one-size-fits all and there's far too much to cover against your company's mission to just give you a hot list of tools I like.
The biggest line of battle is going to be Google Workspace vs Office 365. I'm fine with them both, but not fine with giving them both to everyone. The problem is, if the majority of your company's documents and drive data is fractured over both MS and Google's clouds, it's going to be a nightmare to manage. Choose one and make them your identity provider and life partner. I understand the finance team probably needs a stand-alone Excel license, though.
The other very important part of standardization is hardware. This is something I had to get a bit ruthless about, because managing a fleet over an entirely remote trans-border workforce is expensive if you expect quick turnaround times on onboarding and an immediate replacement for that VIP who just cracked their screen.
I ended up setting up a rapid logistics operation using drop shipping.
Sales, marketing, etc get a 13" Macbook Air M1.
Developers get a 16" M1 Pro because they justifiably need the performance.
No, we don't do custom orders. Not big enough to have spares of all kinds in stock (Apple supply chain lag was a real drag last year). Apple's MDM systems make those machines useless bricks to anyone outside the client's company. (If this sounds like something you need, reach out to me!)
I guess I'll just add that my biggest pet peeve with SaaS vendors is how they want you to pay for the super-duper-expensive package just to get SSO / SAML. That's ridiculous. It's not a cost center for you and it reduces both our risk. If I don't see at least "Sign in with Google" in your cheapest plan, I'm already pissed off as a customer and not going to be your change agent.
ianpenney|2 years ago
The biggest line of battle is going to be Google Workspace vs Office 365. I'm fine with them both, but not fine with giving them both to everyone. The problem is, if the majority of your company's documents and drive data is fractured over both MS and Google's clouds, it's going to be a nightmare to manage. Choose one and make them your identity provider and life partner. I understand the finance team probably needs a stand-alone Excel license, though.
The other very important part of standardization is hardware. This is something I had to get a bit ruthless about, because managing a fleet over an entirely remote trans-border workforce is expensive if you expect quick turnaround times on onboarding and an immediate replacement for that VIP who just cracked their screen.
I ended up setting up a rapid logistics operation using drop shipping.
Sales, marketing, etc get a 13" Macbook Air M1. Developers get a 16" M1 Pro because they justifiably need the performance.
No, we don't do custom orders. Not big enough to have spares of all kinds in stock (Apple supply chain lag was a real drag last year). Apple's MDM systems make those machines useless bricks to anyone outside the client's company. (If this sounds like something you need, reach out to me!)
I guess I'll just add that my biggest pet peeve with SaaS vendors is how they want you to pay for the super-duper-expensive package just to get SSO / SAML. That's ridiculous. It's not a cost center for you and it reduces both our risk. If I don't see at least "Sign in with Google" in your cheapest plan, I'm already pissed off as a customer and not going to be your change agent.
merolish|2 years ago