Success Stories > Santa Cruz Bicycles

Santa Cruz Bicycles was founded in 1994 by skateboarding legend and mountain bike fanatic Rob Roskopp. Rob was frustrated with what he regarded as “a bunch of suits” dictating what mountain biking was, so he rented a workshop the size of a one-car garage and forged his own path. Since then, the company has created industry-leading bicycles that dominate the downhill, cross-country and electric bike categories. 

Santa Cruz Bicycles has grown from a scrappy startup to a name brand with hundreds of employees worldwide, including in Europe and the UK.  They have a reputation not only for great bikes, but for ongoing support of the larger cycling community.  In the course of all this growth, Santa Cruz Bicycles eventually needed some support of its own - specifically to guide the continuing evolution of its tech stack.

Santa Cruz Bicycles adopted Google’s G Suite in 2008. When G Suite was rebranded as Google Workspace, there were updated editions, licensing structure, and feature sets.  The Santa Cruz Bicycles IT team needed reliable advice to choose the best path forward.

IT Manager Kevin Clark, who has been with the company for 21 years, explains that his team is always looking for ways to optimize spend throughout infrastructure operations and to fully harness the capabilities of their existing technology. “If there’s a solid solution or way of upgrading our capabilities through better use of the tools we already have, that’s always preferable to adding something new” says Clark.

Challenge

Along with the general need to have a better handle on Google Workspace, Santa Cruz Bicycles was also planning a business-critical migration of its HR platform, a change which would require the replacement of its company news feed.  The feed provided with their legacy HR system was an integral part of the company’s workplace culture.  Kevin consulted Suitebriar’s Customer Success expert Rob Moore to explore the possibility of a Google-based replacement which would provide a set of Employee Community features connected to their new HRIS.

Solution

Initially, the need for clarity on Google’s licensing requirements led the IT team at Santa Cruz Bicycles to find a partner who could provide guidance on that, and on harnessing the huge untapped potential of Google Workspace. “Simply put, we wanted to do some things, we were uncertain of how to get there on our own, and that’s when we found Suitebriar,” shares Clark. 

Suitebriar is a Google Cloud Partner specializing in supporting organizations as they leverage Google Cloud services within their operation.  This is done through a combination of consultative guidance and hands-on involvement.

“Sometimes you find your way right to the perfect thing!  We found Suitebriar, they met the initial need very quickly, and have proven their value in every interaction since then, including the Community project” says Clark.

In the case of Santa Cruz Bicycles, this help started with a licensing assessment, and Suitebriar provided the clarity needed for Santa Cruz Bicycles to make the right decisions to meet their specific organizational needs.  The Santa Cruz Bicycles IT team also wanted to learn more about how to take full advantage of Google Workspace capabilities. Working with Suitebriar enabled them to tap further into specific features such as using groups more effectively, taking full advantage of Google Meet features, using Google Apps Manager (GAM), and so on. Several of these feature sets were particularly relevant in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic since much of the Santa Cruz Bicycles staff was required to work remotely.

Already established as a valuable partner, Suitebriar became a key resource as Santa Cruz Bicycles transitioned to their new HR platform. Their former HRIS had included a “news feed” feature set, and there was nothing comparable provided with their new enterprise-level system.  The news feed had been an essential part of their workplace culture, and Kevin knew a replacement solution had to be prepared before their new HRIS was launched. 

After reviewing the requirements, Suitebriar recommended establishing a digital community using Lumapps. This would not only enable the rapid development of an enhanced news feed which would be familiar to their employees as they navigated the new HRIS; it would also bring the potential for a far more extensive set of community features that could be developed as the company continued to grow.

Results

The development team at Suitebriar led the customization and rollout of a LumApps Employee Community, including the integration between the new HRIS, Google Workspace, and Google Cloud Platform.  The company news feed was ready to go on day one of the HRIS launch.  Since then, Suitebriar has continued to assist Santa Cruz Bicycles with refinements to the feed design and the integration behind it.

Clark looks forward to the ongoing benefits of Suitebriar’s expertise and insight. As a veteran user of Google products, Clark has found Suitebriar’s services a vital addition to the company’s operation. “If we're talking about the importance of Google within our business and the benefit of having reliable and informative support, I'd say it's absolutely essential.”