Overview of 2020

Summing up 2020 can often feel like an exercise in doomsday-terminology one-upmanship: “unprecedented”, “a year like no other”, “hellscape”, you get the picture! However, as much as 2020 has set a world record for unforeseen events, many things have remained the same this year. The sun keeps rising, LeBron keeps winning and Google keeps...creating? Well, sort of. Let's look at how effectively, or ineffectively, they're doing this with Google Workplace.

Introducing Google Workplace

Google’s recent branding change of GSuite into Google Workplace brought with it two new products. A Slack competitor aptly named Google Chat, and an Airtable competitor named Google Tables (they didn’t seem too interested in breaking any frontiers with that one). "Why is this news important to me?" I hear you ask. Great question. Let me answer it for you now.

Exploring Google Workplace

First off, for those of you unfamiliar with Google Workplace, Airtable and products like it, I explored this new category in an article which you can read here. In it, I explained that while these tools typically take on the shape of a wiki or database, the most appropriate name for them is in fact “All-in-one workspace”. These tools often nest functionality of a word processor and spreadsheet all into a web of user-friendly database management. This allows for unprecedented interaction between simple words and data, as well as enabling the embedding of other software right into the “file”.

The Rise of All-in-one Workspaces

So far, these all-in-ones have been largely relegated to hip startups looking to break free from the shackles of cumbersome cloud storage and file management. They are meant to reflect the agile nature of small teams that need a certain level of functionality but not so much that they should shell out money for several different applications (a database, office suite, project tracking, etc.). However, the two biggest problems for adopting these tools so far has been the:

1. Seamless integration with Office or Gsuite

2. User comprehension of what exactly they are best for

The Introduction of Google Tables

"Tables is like a spreadsheet and a database had a baby and gave it superpowers." — Narrator from the Google Tables demo video.

GSuite has been dominating the SME market as the leading office suite provider, and slowly edging into larger and larger organizations over the past few years. As people are getting more accustomed to collaborating together in a document, they are slowly realizing that GSuite was missing some core functionality—namely, chat and project management. The latter is what makes the Tables release so interesting. Rather than going for the confusing “all-in-one” explanation, Google is claiming that Tables is the ultimate project tracking tool for those using GSuite (now Google Workplace).

Market Changes and Future Prospects

Replace the word 'Tables' with 'Airtable' or Microsoft’s competitor 'Lists' and the rest of the sentence will fit like a glove. Yet Airtable’s website goes well beyond project management and calls itself a workspace and a platform. The reason for this is likely that Google’s customer base simply isn’t ready to eschew their beloved office suite. For now, Google will fill the gap with an “all-in-one” but sell it as a project management platform until certain metrics are met and then—TA DA—they announce that Tables is so much more!

Conclusion and Looking Ahead

This is why we’re working so hard at Wrk to build a platform that eradicates edge cases. We want to make sure that we cover all the gaps—not necessarily by directly integrating with everything. Rather we’re leveraging some much-needed human capacity in proprietary Hybrid Automation technology. We are building a platform that is as powerful as existing automation services, yet as comprehensive as a human center of excellence.

Until next time,

Charlie

If you want to learn more about how Wrk’s Hybrid Automation can benefit teams today, visit our Why Wrk page!

Feature Image Photo Credit: You X Ventures