Deploying Managed IT Services (MITS) within the Education Sector

Hi Tom, can you tell us how Craven College and Apogee came to work together to provide a Managed IT Services (MITS) solution?

The relationship with Craven College started with a successful Managed Print Service (MPS) rollout. This rollout then led to conversations based on that relationship around Managed IT Services (MITS) and pain points that they have in terms of supporting rollouts and things like that with Adrian Lawson, head of IT at Craven College.

What do you feel was the main factor for Craven College evolving the relationship from Managed Print Services (MPS) to Managed IT Services (MITS)?

As part of the successful Managed Print Service (MPS) rollout that was carried out by Apogee and the Deployment Services team, relationships were built. They sort of found out what we were made of, if you will, what we can do at Apogee.

And that has led on to where we were having conversations around their ageing IT equipment. It was something I think they knew needed to be done. This was now the time for it.

Can you tell us the central concern Craven College faced in their IT estate that they hoped to address through Apogee's Managed IT Service (MITS)?

I think the main sort of concerns with the College would be staffing, a small IT Department to deploy circa. 900 PCs or laptops would be quite time consuming. So, for Apogee, we were provided with a brief of what sort of solutions College wanted to achieve. We took that through the Crescent Purchasing Consortium (CPC) Framework documents, then went away, came back and gave some better ideas in terms of streamlining the process, if you will to solve those concerns.

Tom, could you explain your role in terms of both the deployment of Managed Print Services (MPS) and Managed IT Services (MITS)?

   So, my role effectively is to run the field team to carry out this sort of works. We deploy anything from Managed Print all the way through to Managed IT. The guys and myself are completely involved from the start-up of a deal, from initial scoping out through to ultimately implementation.

My role was a strange one really. We obviously carried out the Managed Print Service (MPS) rollout, creating good working relationships with Craven College. We built up their trust and that evolved into myself from an operational side, sort of helping them with their journey, if you will, as part of the process. Leading to conversations around Managed IT Services (MITS).

What was the brief provided by Craven College for the deployment of a Managed IT Service (MITS) in Education? Has the College specific needs that a Managed IT Service (MITS) solution needed to provide for Higher Education? 

One of the briefs that Craven College provided us was ultimately the deployment side that was taking the pain away from them free of their IT Department. With Managed IT Services (MITS) we manage everything from asset tagging devices, imaging them, ultimately deployed them to desk, carrying out training with end users while logging that and also bringing in an asset management system which wasn't previously there.

Then through the tender process there was a particular need for casting, Apple Mac's and also a laptop loan system. So that's something that we worked with. We found the sort of best fit in terms of a solution, the casting that was deployed was Screen Beam that's given the College a lot more options now to be interactive with their students, to cast from a mobile phone to a Mac or a Windows based device. In terms of the Macs, we carried out a fairly simple installation to desk of their devices.

And also the laptop locker system will be due this summer. That will allow and ultimately free up staff out of hours to loan the devices to people.