• Streamlines global supply chains by keeping track of 30,000 truckloads and 10,000 shipping containers on Sheets

• Enables real-time guidance to farmers during the COVID-19 pandemic with 5,000 Meet calls

• Safeguards intellectual property by moving from zero security legacy email to near 100% protection with built-in security

• Enhances trust with global clients and regulators through automated compliance on Form

In the 1960s, Bhavarlal Jain, a young law graduate, launched a business selling kerosene from a pushcart in India's Maharashtra state. That planted the seed for a humanistic enterprise that grew into the world's second-largest micro-irrigation firm, Jain Irrigation Systems (Jains), empowering farmers from Peru to Kazakhstan.

Under the Jain Irrigation model, agronomists fan the world to give farmers free guidance on how best to optimize crops. Whether the farmer buys a Jain irrigation system or not, the agronomist from Jain Irrigation Systems is committed to providing an end-to-end modernization strategy.

The vision has been honored by UNESCO and studied by Harvard Business School. In 2015, Forbes presented Jain, whose inspiration was Mahatma Gandhi, with its "hero of philanthropy" award. Jain is also an early pioneer of today's green ethos that "doing good is good business." The firm has annual revenue of $1.2 billion, reaching more than 125 markets and over eight million farmers.

Two years ago, Jain Irrigation was in the midst of forging strategies to reach its next eight million farmers. These include an AI-driven ag-tech platform, diversification into green farming infrastructure, and nurturing the huge potential of African agriculture, seen as the new frontier in farming empowerment. Yet the dreams were complicated by the very sprawling nature of the enterprise, and legacy systems that struggled to connect all parts.

Jain Irrigation decided it needed digital transformation built around a productivity and collaboration solution. This would enable secure, real-time communications and information sharing among stakeholders scattered in some of the world's most remote regions, including agronomists in Bangladesh, farmers in Tanzania, suppliers in Brazil, all the way to staff at headquarters in India's rural Jalgaon.

Jain Irrigation switched from "pen-and-paper" record-keeping and locally hosted email to Google Workspace collaboration and productivity tools. It helped spark a new chapter in Jain Irrigation's journey empowering farmers with sustainable agriculture systems in an age of resource scarcity and mobility restrictions due to COVID-19.

"We like to say our bottom line is measured not in profits but farmers' smiles. That's what motivates us to keep growing. Yet it also creates a challenge of geographically-scattered data with teams on different software," says Abhedya Jain, Vice President Jain Irrigation Systems. "Google Workspace transforms our ability to work creatively, quickly, and securely in the farthest reaches of the world."

For Jain, one of the greatest satisfactions of the platform adoption has been extending the firm's reach with global farmers. In an age of Covid, he says, Google Workspace has enabled Jain Irrigation to provide real-time guidance, in the middle of difficult situations such as floods, typhoons and dry spells, not to mention lockdowns.

Jain Irrigation eased the burden of a difficult 2020 with more than 5,000 Meet video calls, providing training for farmers on everything from planting to water management. Jain Irrigation also used Drive to securely share continuously updated insights with agronomists, farmers, and suppliers.

The positive energy unleashed in the firm's early days on Google Workspace grew rapidly. It resulted in deployment of a comprehensive range of solutions that support every aspect of the business.

For example, Jain Irrigation uses Sheets for all finance, logistics, and fleet tracking needs. The simplicity of Sheets soon made it one of Jain Irrigation's most popular tools, with an adoption rate of 78%. With Sheets, Jain Irrigation easily keeps track of the 50,000 truckloads and 10,000 shipping containers criss-crossing supply chains every day.

Meanwhile, Forms has been instrumental to secure information collection, from customer surveys to global compliance. Jain Irrigation is proactive about reaching out to farming communities, with questionnaires about concerns, ambitions, needs, and challenges. Forms easily enables these insights with its simple-to-use interface and interactive features such as multiple choice questions.

Forms secure templates are also ideal for ensuring compliance, something that used to be a very bureaucratic process. "Now Forms enables anyone in our company to guarantee compliance at the click of a few buttons thanks to its sheer simplicity," says Jain.

The results of these benefits have been significant. In two years since adopting Google Workspace, Jain Irrigation has shared 700,000 Docs, Sheets and Slides globally, for an estimated 10-fold boost to productivity. Meanwhile, world-class security baked into all Google Workspace solutions has enabled the firm to move from "zero security" on legacy email to near-complete security.

The ultimate empowerment? The freedom to do what Jain Irrigation does best, creating innovative solutions that help farmers succeed. "With Google Workspace enabling scalable business processes in the cloud, we can focus 100% on our irrigation, food processing, solar power and ag-tech platform without worrying about IT," says Jain.