Acer Chrome permanent and mobile workplaces support growth of YoungCapital Online employment agency YoungCapital is busy migrating its office environment from Microsoft to Google. G Suite and Google Cloud form the new foundation. For the permanent and mobile workplaces, the strongly growing company has selected Chromebook 14 for Acer Work- and Chrome-based systems. Sophie Kuijpers is Teamlead IT-support and was closely involved in the migration. She is extremely enthusiastic about Acer’s Chrome portfolio: “First rate priceperformance ratio, robust, versatile, user-friendly and very easy to manage”, she says as she summarises the benefits. Market leader YoungCapital can be termed a standout company. Founded in 2000 as a website with jobs for students (‘Sudentenwerk’), since then YoungCapital has been operating 20 jobsites and is the Dutch market leader for online recruitment. The company has 36 establishments in our country and is active outside the borders in Belgium, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany, France, Austria and Spain.
The candidate database now has 5 million records and every year there are 500,000 new applications. In total, the fast-growing YoungCapital has over 1,000 employees, of which at least 80% are recruiters. In 2017, the company achieved turnover of 325 million euros. In the trophy cabinet there are a number of different entrepreneur awards, such as the Best Employer Certification for 20172018. On the leading Management Team top 500 list the company is in 31st position. Lightning quick From the very start, technology and innovation were already playing an important role at YoungCapital. The employment agency leads the way with for example WhatsApp video applications and research into virtual reality for recruitment. All software for business operations is to a large extent developed under own management with 60(!) developers. The complete application environment runs in the cloud, which facilitates a transition to Chrome OS. In 2016, the management decided to migrate the office environment from Microsoft Office to Google G Suite (previously Google Apps for Work) and to implement storage, system and application management in the Google Cloud. In so doing, the desire for a fully webbased, lightning quick and seamlessly scalable production model was able to be fulfilled with (management) costs a lot lower than previously. Google specialist NextNovate, based in The Hague, assisted YoungCapital in the implementation with its advice and actions.
Sophie Kuijpers, YoungCapital Teamlead IT-support
Vocation for migration At the start of 2017, migration began with the transition
to Gmail and Google Agenda. In August this was followed by the transfer of the data files to Google Drive. Although Chrome is fully compatible with Office files, YoungCapital is breaking away from Office and is also set to gradually split from the Windows operating system on a companywide level to move to Chrome OS, with a few small exceptions for specialist departments such as software development. 26-year-old businesswoman Sophie Kuijpers fell on her feet around the time of the migration decision when she was Teamlead IT-support. She explains the background of the migration: “Our company grows extremely quickly. This year we are expecting over three hundred new colleagues. For this reason it is terrific that G Suite can now be managed via Google Admin in the cloud very easily. In addition, we found that the Google environment was a
“Fortunately these Chromebooks can withstand a collision” better fit for our image as an innovative company. We want to continue to operate at the forefront of the employment agency sector. The G Suite office environment and work in the cloud fits in very well with our character. It is faster, more flexible, more functional, more user friendly and contributes to lower costs.” Hardware Software is nice, but in the end you do still need hardware in order to capitalise on the advantages. After a comparative study under a number of different suppliers for Chrome workplaces, YoungCapital chose Acer, for both Chromebooks and for the All In One Chromebase systems. As Kuijpers puts it: “Acer is one of the few suppliers that offers a broad choice in very competitively priced Chrome OS systems. What I find very attractive with Acer is that they are innovative and bring new machines and new versions onto the market. Product development is therefore swift. That suits us very nicely.” At the end of 2016, the first Chromebases were installed at YoungCapital. Kuijpers: “We began with Chromebase systems in our intake spaces, where our recruiters meet the candidates. Often a candidate also has to register
in our system and upload a photo Candidates that are not able to come to our office take part via a Hangouts video session. And if the recruiter has no candidates, he can keep his or her administration up to date on the Chromebase. They are very versatile and user-friendly systems, of which we now have over one hundred. What is also very good is that they require virtually no maintenance. It only takes five minutes to start them up, install them and connect them to our domain.” Except for in the intake spaces, the Chromebases will also increasingly be introduced into regular (flexible) workplaces. They are replacing the still very common YoungCapital combination of a laptop and a large external monitor. Solid housing YoungCapital now also uses 350 Chromebook 14 for Work systems. Kuijpers expects this number to rise quickly because the company is growing so fast. The reason Acer Chromebooks was selected was also the good priceperformance ratio and user-friendliness. In addition, the solid design of the housing was also very appealing to YoungCapital. Kuijpers: “A lot of recruiters commute and take their Chromebook 14 for Work with them in the car or on a full train. They may sometimes fall, but fortunately these Chromebooks can withstand a collision. On top of this, the liquid drainage function is also well integrated; a cup of tea spilled over the keypad does not do any damage. Plus the battery can also easily last 1 to 2 days. In short: everyone is extremely enthusiastic about the Acers.”