Cloudy With a Chance of Chromebooks
June 11, 2012
Business customers have been hesitant to buy Google Chromebooks, computers designed to run software delivered via a web browser. But Edward Hanapole, CIO for diversified education services company Kaplan, is taking a more aggressive approach to the computers–which boot up faster and cost less than traditional laptops. He’s testing dozens of new Chromebook notebooks and Chromebox desktop machines in Kaplan’s call centers.
“[Chromebooks] can be hugely disruptive for the enterprise, as well as in many of our facilities,” Hanapole told CIO Journal during a meeting in Google’s New York City office May 31. Hanapole, who was in town to participate on a panel at Google’s cloud computing event May 31, said the Chromebook initiative is one of several efforts to move the company’s 30,000 worldwide employees into the cloud. This is part of a broader process the company embarked on a few years ago to simplify IT operations amid declining financial performance…
Kaplan, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Washington Post Company, has long been known as the company people turn to for help preparing for various exams. But the company is also trying to help itself after its revenues declined over the last few years. In May, the Washington Post said revenue for its education division — Kaplan – totaled $553.4 million for the first quarter of 2012, an 11% decline from revenue of $618.9 million for the first quarter of 2011. For the quarter, Kaplan reported an operating loss of $13.2 million, compared to operating income of $20 million for the year-ago quarter.
Part of Kaplan’s financial challenge is its business line diversification, culled from two decades of acquisitions. Kaplan has four major subdivisions, including Kaplan Higher Education, which includes Kaplan University, Kaplan Professional, Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, and Kaplan Kids and Schools. These units all run custom business systems, operations systems and learning platforms. Over time, managing the business software and infrastructure for these divisions, which included 16 Microsoft Exchange domains, grew cumbersome and unwieldy, Hanapole said.
Such inefficiency is not a recipe for success for a company that competes on a handful of fronts with dozens of rivals that include Princeton Review in test preparation and Devry University and the University of Phoenix in higher education. Kaplan CEO Andy Rosen, who in 2009 started an IT transformation process to cut costs and make the company run more efficiently, decided to do something about Kaplan’s tangled infrastructure.
In January 2010, he hired Hanapole, who integrated disparate systems and streamlined IT during stints at News Corp. and IBM. Hanapole began migrating Kaplan from Microsoft Office productivity software to Google Apps last year. Roughly 23,000 North American employees are now on Google; the company is still moving its 7,000 international employees to Google’s software, Hanapole said. He pays $50 per user, per year for the Google Apps software. “Google Apps is a starting point for IT automation and efficiency,” he said.
Lots of CIOs share similar stories. They join a company, see inefficiency in e-mail and move to Google Apps, or maybe move to Salesforce.com for customer software. Cloud adoption for some IT leaders often ends there. Not for Hanapole, who insists on bringing more and more software originally developed for consumers into the workplace. For example, he and roughly 200 technology workers at Kaplan conduct video chats via Google+ Hangouts.
But Hanapole’s Chromebook and Chromebox tests, another step in Kaplan’s move to the cloud, rank among the boldest cloud moves yet for a CIO. Chrome machines, in conjunction with communications software from Genesys, allow contact agents to field, transfer, hold, and release customer calls right through the computers. Such a move is progressive at a time when businesses have been reluctant to use Chromebooks because they have limited local storage. It’s also cost-effective compared to the thousands of dollars a year Hanapole pays to license and manage Microsoft desktops in the call centers; he expects using Chrome machines could cut Kaplan’s computing costs in half. If all goes well with the Chrome machine tests, Hanapole hopes to switch all 3,000 contact center agents, and eventually all of the company’s 20,000-plus knowledge workers, to Chrome-based machines.
Some CIOs might be leery of using so much Google software, but Hanapole said he’s comfortable with Google’s security controls. “The concerns that I have as a CIO is that you’re either going to provide certain tools and technologies to employees or you’re not, and they will actually go and do it on their own,” he said. Hanapole believes it’s important to give employees access to technology that they want to use at home.
This attitude also could help Kaplan better compete in an education services field where rivals have proven savvy in using consumer technology for business. The University of Phoenix, a subsidiary of the Apollo Group, also supports Gmail and Google Apps. The company also offers mobile applications for Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android software that allow students to access their coursework from smartphones and tablet computers.
Hanapole attributes his love for consumer technology to his 20 year career in media, which includes roles at Standard & Poor’s, Simon & Schuster and New York Times Digital. Over time, Hanapole realized that the technology he employed to help consumers access content also could be used to empower employees. And when people have the opportunity to feel empowered, they want to come work for you, said Hanapole.
“What I’m trying to do is flip it so that we’re formally sponsoring a program that is giving our employees who have expectations of how they want to use tools and technology to communicate and replicate that in a corporate environment,” Hanapole said. “Nobody goes home and works in Outlook.”