Financial services firm Wealthtec Holdings has enhanced security, streamlined operations and cut costs by switching to Google Cloud, Workspace and Chrome Enterprise in partnership with Radical Cloud Solutions. Radical, a Digicloud Africa Google Cloud partner, helped Wealthtec modernise its infrastructure and achieve integration across its environment with Google Cloud, Google Workspace Enterprise and Chrome.
Wealthtec was hampered by outdated software that lacked integration capabilities and did not offer sufficient security – particularly for call centre staff. Because Wealthtec processes sensitive consumer financial and National Credit Regulator-related information in South Africa, security and compliance are crucial. The company also needed to access its data from anywhere, collaborate more effectively and scale its storage more efficiently.
Radical reports that by migrating to Google’s unified, cloud-first environment and standardising on ChromeOS, it enabled Wealthtec to improve client data security, drastically reduce IT burdens and costs, and streamline daily workflows. “Radical modernised the entire business infrastructure and got employees onto Chrome devices, modelling and transitioning their existing hardware into a Chrome environment where possible,” says Radical Cloud Solutions MD Mark Houghton. “This extended the hardware lifespan and allowed them to simplify the management of their systems. Importantly, using Chrome gives them better control over their corporate data and ensures compliance, allowing staff to securely process sensitive legal and financial data.”
The move to ChromeOS was the largest implementation of its kind in the country at the time, with a rollout of 300 Chrome devices for call centre agents and Google Chrome Enterprise – a centralised management and security solution for IT administration – in 2024. Some 340 of Wealthtec’s devices are now standardised on Chrome.
“The move was a turning point for our company,” says Rynhardt Visser, IT infrastructure and support manager at Wealthtec Holdings. “We were facing numerous challenges with outdated software solutions that were hampering our productivity and security. By switching to Google Workspace and Chrome devices, we were able to take advantage of the latest technology, streamline our workflows and enhance the security of our data and systems.”
James Houghton, CEO of Radical Cloud Solutions, says more organisations across Africa are embracing Google enterprise solutions. “Google has always been a very powerful enterprise tool, but Africa has been slow to adopt it until recently. However, organisations are starting to realise that the ecosystem works: it’s safe, secure and functional. There is minimal – if any – downtime. Organisations can improve security, simplify management and save costs at the same time.”
A Forrester Total Economic Impact report on Google Workspace found that the security features built into Workspace provided a financial benefit, as organisations were able to retire third-party legacy security solutions for anti-spam, anti-phishing and encryption. Security and IT teams also saved significant time with Workspace, requiring up to 90% less time to configure new workstations and seeing a 20% reduction in IT support tickets.
“We want to give our clients the best value for money, the best time saving and the best security, all wrapped into one. And we find that Google delivers all of these,” James Houghton concludes.