12/01/2012

By Scott Thompson

BBVA is adopting Google’s cloud-based collaboration and communication suite Google Apps for Business. This is the biggest deal the search giant has secured from an individual company for its cloud-computing services.

Over 35,000 of the banking giant’s workers in Spain will initially use the tools integrated in to the Google Apps suite including: Gmail with Google Chat, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Groups, Google Sites and Google Video. By the end of 2012, BBVA expects to migrate 110,000 employees in over 26 countries to the suite. It is looking to increase efficiency and to help its workers collaborate more easily, regardless of location.

José Olalla, CIO at BBVA says: “We were looking for a technology that would transform our business operations - not just make our workers more efficient. Integrating the Google Apps for Business suite with our own tools will allow us to introduce a new way of working where employees have access to all the information they need with just one click, no matter where they are, and can reap the benefits of using advanced collaboration tools.”

“Companies of all sizes, including those with tens of thousands of employees, are now embracing cloud computing. It means a lot to us that BBVA, one of the largest financial institutions in the world, has decided to migrate to Google Apps. It shows that cloud computing is now a reality - and leading organisations are already realising its potential to transform their business,” comments Sebastián Marotte, vice president of Sebastián Marotte, vice president of Google Enterprise EMEA.

The contract is set to run for one year and then be automatically renewed until one of the firms decides to terminate it.