The Challenge
Five years ago when Vikesh Anand was appointed as head of Technology at St Dympna’s, he was the first person to hold a full time IT role at the school: “When I started, I found that when things used to go wrong or equipment broke, they were put aside and teachers went back to old ways of running their lessons. Each technology purchase was standalone, at best price from a website, and from multiple suppliers.”
Vikesh determined to rationalise procurement through a small group of reliable partners that could not only offer very competitive pricing but be committed to long term servicing. “I wasn’t comfortable spending hundreds of thousands of dollars without meeting and trusting our suppliers. The more we embedded technology in our classrooms, the more dependent our teachers and their teaching would be on it.”
Having left Apple to join the school, part of Vikesh’s mandate was to systematically migrate to that environment. St Dympna’s has rapidly become a prominent and innovative Apple user in the Brisbane Archdiocese. And Vikesh is the ‘go to’ expert for schools in the group.
But even with that focus on a single platform, the school still needed a streamlined, responsive approach to purchasing and management of its expanding technology assets.
The Brisbane Catholic Education Offices (BCEO) does not dictate but encourages its schools to use tried and tested suppliers. CompNow is one of that preferred group with its proven expertise in the education sector and coverage across all environments, procurement and management.