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Deliveroo: Delivering record-breaking growth with the right tools

Deliveroo

Deliveroo is the fastest-growing technology company in the United Kingdom, according to Deloitte, and uses Google Workspace to establish new offices, onboard staff, enhance collaboration, and expand at speed.

Deliveroo

Food-delivery service Deliveroo provides an app that connects restaurants, couriers, and hungry people in over 200 cities worldwide. Founded in 2013, Deliveroo is active in 14 countries.

Features used
Sheets
Docs
Drive
Google Meet
Deliveroo

Deliveroo is the fastest-growing technology company in the United Kingdom, according to Deloitte, and uses Google Workspace to establish new offices, onboard staff, enhance collaboration, and expand at speed.

Google Workspace Results

Video conferencing in 14 countries run by 1 AV manager

• Sets up new laptops in five minutes instead of almost an hour, with Pixelbooks

• Trains staff on Google Workspace products in one hour, with Netpremacy

• Collaborates on Docs, Sheets, and Drive to enable rapid expansion

• Replaces alternative videoconferencing solution to save £15 per user per month

Deliveroo is the fastest-growing technology company in the United Kingdom, and the first ever to win Deloitte's UK Technology Fast 50 two years in a row. Founded in 2013, the food courier service achieved a three-year growth rate of over 15,000% to 2018, expanding beyond its London base to operate in 14 countries in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, from Spain to Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

"Google Workspace products work really well, with no steep learning curve. As a fast-growing company, our strategy is to go to Google Workspace tools first to find immediate, effective answers within one integrated solution." - Asif Akmal, Director of IT, Deliveroo

The company runs multiple offices in each of its 14 markets, manned by more than 2,500 full-time staff. "Around 2016, we made a clear decision," says Asif Akmal, Director of IT at Deliveroo. "As the company was scaling, we needed a strategy for all our offices to scale with us, and we needed the right infrastructure to do that. We can't afford to have downtime, or to have tools that confuse staff, rather than help them."

Together with Google Cloud Premier Partner Netpremacy, Deliveroo created a strategy around Google Workspace that emphasizes the speed and efficiency the company needs to set up offices and train new staff.

"Google Workspace products work really well, with no steep learning curve," says Asif. "As a fast-growing company, our strategy is to go to Google Workspace tools first to find immediate, effective answers within one integrated solution."

Putting videoconferencing at the core of the business

Videoconferencing is central to the Deliveroo business model. "Many of our international offices rely on operational staff from headquarters, whether for daily one-to-ones or group meetings," says Asif. "Some of our engineers are constantly present in remote offices on a permanent live video stream, with a screen at the desk where there would be a chair. That makes it mission critical for us to have the correct infrastructure in place in order to do videoconferencing."

Because internet connectivity can be inconsistent at new offices, Deliveroo teams occasionally need to be able to dial into videoconferencing over the phone, as well as connect through the internet. Previously, Deliveroo used a separate videoconferencing solution in order to have this feature. Now, as Google Workspace Enterprise Plus users, Deliveroo employees can use Google Meet for the same dial-in functionality, higher quality reception, and up to 100 participants on each call.

"Videoconferencing is crucial. And with Google Meet we can have just one AV person in the whole business setting up and overseeing the infrastructure in 14 countries." - Asif Akmal, Director of IT, Deliveroo

"It was a simple decision to switch to Google Meet," says Asif. "It came with the enterprise package that we were already on, so we made a substantial cost savings by stopping the other solution, which cost almost £15 a month per user. Financially, that made it a no-brainer, but Meet also works better from a technical and integration perspective."

"One of the first things that we address as a company moving into a new office is: Where do we get the videoconferencing system in place so we can start doing calls straight away?" says Elliott Shafii, Google Technology Engineer at Deliveroo. That's why Deliveroo has a blueprint for video conferencing rooms, specifying the equipment required and the size and acoustics of the rooms where they'll be installed. Once the necessary Google Meet hardware has been delivered, the Deliveroo AV Manager flies out to the location, installs the equipment in two days, signs off on it, and flies back.

"Videoconferencing is crucial," says Asif. "And with Google Meet we can have just one AV person in the whole business setting up and overseeing the infrastructure in 14 countries."

Issuing new devices in one-tenth of the time

Deliveroo facilitates its exceptional growth rate by minimizing the time teams need to spend getting to grips with new tools. "With Google Workspace, users don't have much that they need to learn," says Asif. "That means we can deploy the solution in any country and be comfortable that people can walk into a room and connect to a meeting without problems."

Asif and his team worked closely with Netpremacy to make training in Google Workspace tools efficient and accessible, for new starters and anyone who wants to learn. "Collaborating on Docs and Sheets, and using Drive to share files instead of sending attachments allows us to move more rapidly than any other business," says Asif. "That's why we have permanent staff in the IT team who concentrate exclusively on the onboarding process, so anyone can learn to use one of the Google Workspace products in just one hour."

Introducing Pixelbooks is the latest step in Deliveroo's pursuit of speed and efficiency. "Previously, it took an average of 50 minutes to set someone up on a laptop," says Asif. "With Chrome devices, that induction period is down to five minutes. We just open the box, enroll the device, and hand it over."

Creating a cloud-based company

"Our strong relationships with Netpremacy and Google Cloud product managers mean we can align our internal strategies with them. Working together, we can create the ideal environment for our culture of collaboration." - Asif Akmal, Director of IT, Deliveroo

Using Google Workspace, Deliveroo is building its ideal workplace to support a more mobile, agile approach to work. "By the end of next year, we should have the vast majority of new starters using Pixelbooks," says Asif. "We expect that to increase the use of Docs and Sheets and other Google Workspace tools, in place of other applications. We want to see ourselves as a cloud-based company, and Google Workspace is ideal for reaching that goal."

As part of the further deployment of Google Workspace tools, Deliveroo plans to roll out more Jamboards**, in addition to the 14 already in use across the business. "Previously, we would take photographs of whiteboards and share those," says Elliott. "I remember seeing someone wheeling a whiteboard back to his desk from a meeting, and thinking 'That poor guy is going to have to sit at his desk and copy everything down.'"

"At that point, before Jamboards, we actually made a significant financial investment in another interactive whiteboard solution," adds Asif. "Now that solution is collecting dust, because we've got Jamboards, which are much more cost-effective and work brilliantly within the Google Workspace system."

"Our strong relationships with Netpremacy and Google Cloud product managers mean we can align our internal strategies with them," says Asif. "Working together, we can create the ideal environment for our culture of collaboration."

Embracing the cloud helps Deliveroo both to enable rapid collaboration and to minimize the maintenance and management of infrastructure: an ideal combination for a fast-growing technology company.

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*Google Workspace was formerly known as G Suite prior to Oct. 6, 2020.

**Jamboard is winding down. Learn more.

Google Cloud Premier Partner

Netpremacy

Google Cloud Premier Partner Netpremacy provides Google Workspace, Google Cloud Platform, AI, and deployment solutions to over 3,000 businesses in 30 countries.