Keeping abreast with changes in information technology (IT) is crucial to any organisation that wants to scale up and increase productivity. If a company is growing, your dependence on IT will grow with it. Output and expectations increase, timelines decrease, and efficiency is the word of the day. Whether the goal is profit or not, information technology is the linchpin to achieving the organisation’s vision and mission.
The Akshaya Patra Foundation has seen phenomenal growth in the 14 years since its inception. From feeding just 1,500 children across 5 schools in Bangalore, today the Foundation feeds over 1.4 million children in 23 locations across 10 states of India every day. Coordinating these efforts involving hundreds of people employed in different capacities across the kitchens and corporate headquarters is no easy feat. But the aggressive use of information technology has helped run the organisation like a well-oiled machine.
There are a few distinct ways in which Akshaya Patra utilises information technology: end–user support, IT infrastructure, security and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).
Akshaya Patra has taken decisive steps with its investment into information technology. Office 365 has been added to the email infrastructure. A Citrix XenApp server was set up to ensure that the servers are up and running all the time. Akshaya Patra has hired a data center facility to house servers and associated components. The Foundation migrated to Windows 7 and also implemented SharePoint to aid in the transfer of information.
The management team at Akshaya Patra understands the crucial role information technology plays in realising the organisation’s goals. Supporting the Foundation’s mission to feed 5 million children by 2020, the IT team at Akshaya Patra is already looking to the future to see how best they can contribute to achieving this target in the least amount of time. But Akshaya Patra’s modus operandi of implementing the latest in information technology, combined with the expertise of its IT team, certainly looks to have put the Foundation on the path to success.
