GCP – Hamina boosts productivity and achieves cost savings with Google

Editor’s note: In today’s post, Niko Palmu, IT Manager for the town of Hamina, Finland, shares their success story. Hamina’s adoption of ChromeOS, Google Workspace, and Google Cloud resulted in a remarkable 60% cost reduction while boosting productivity for their 800 strong workforce.

Hamina, along with many municipalities around the world, is actively navigating a period of significant change. As responsibilities shift away from the towns and budgets evolve, we were prompted to reevaluate our approach to technology.

Sharing ChromeOS devices with the entire Hamina workforce

We started our journey toward efficient and easy-to-use cloud technology within Hamina’s education departments. We expected to start and stop with our schools—until we saw the impact of ChromeOS devices, Google Cloud, and Google Workspace. We saw a dramatic decrease in support tickets and a surge in user productivity. In fact, once teachers and admin staff got their hands on ChromeOS devices, they were inspired to ask questions about making the experience even better.

In IT, we asked ourselves: Could we realize cost savings and a better user experience in other town departments? The answer was a resounding “yes.” We piloted 70 ChromeOS devices across other departments, yielding a double win. Not only did the test confirm ChromeOS functionality, but it unearthed a hidden gem: a user base eager to explore their devices’ full potential and transform how they work.

The lower costs and support needs empowered us to bring IT support in-house, dissolving our dependence on the 150-person external support team. The reduced support burden directly translated to increased user productivity from our teachers.

With ChromeOS, Google Cloud, and Google Workspace, employees can take their work anywhere, without limitations. We no longer needed VPNs to securely work remotely, freeing up people to work from home or around Hamina. Employees saw the potential for ChromeOS devices to transform their work, just as those of us in IT saw the potential to eliminate many hours of management time.

The sense of freedom and real enthusiasm cemented our decision to share the benefits of ChromeOS more widely. Today, we have about 3,700 Acer ChromeOS devices across all municipal departments. That freedom extends to our IT team, since we’re free of the need to spend hours on maintaining employee devices. We’re now in a workplace that’s built for the future.

How Google solutions work together

The combination of Google Workspace, ChromeOS, and Google Cloud has brought our vision for an efficient and flexible workplace to life. Since ChromeOS and Google Workspace are built on Google’s cloud infrastructure, employees have the flexibility to work from anywhere while still being connected and collaborative with colleagues. Together with Google Cloud Platform and third-party solutions, Hamina built a browser-based desktop as a service to allow people to access desktops and traditional applications in the same way as cloud applications.

Gone are the days of complex application management and costly endpoint security. With ChromeOS, Google Workspace, and modern VDI on Google Cloud Platform, nearly all employee applications are accessible through the familiar Chrome browser. This not only simplifies the user experience but also empowers our IT team with centralized control. From a single console, we can manage browser settings, extensions, and security policies ensuring a consistent and secure environment for everyone.

This integrated approach with ChromeOS and Google Cloud allows us to eliminate VPNs. The shift away from traditional endpoint connections not only reduces complexity but also lowers our overall IT management and security costs.

A 60% reduction in technology costs

ChromeOS, Workspace, and Google Cloud Platform helped Hamina to streamline operations, reduce our costs, and simplify the operational environment by reducing the need for server and network infrastructure.

With the savings from the various ChromeOS and Google solutions, we’ve reduced our local IT costs by as much as 60%. We don’t need to buy thousands of software licenses for all our devices. Security is built into ChromeOS, saving on costs for security software and hardware.

The technology that limited Hamina employees has disappeared. ChromeOS has become a tool for doing whatever we need, whenever we need it, and with as much power, security, and storage needed. We’re excited about the improvements to come for Hamina and our employees.