About SVDP
St Vincent de Paul Society Canberra/Goulburn play an important role in our society by helping those most in need, such as the homeless, low-income earners, refugees and migrants, Indigenous Australians, and the elderly.
What was the challenge?
In 2008 St Vincent de Paul Society Canberra/Goulburn came on board with F1 Solutions as a client. At the time another IT company had been managing their infrastructure needs and their approach had been to react to issues as they presented. While this was acceptable, there was considerable room for improvement, as St Vincent de Paul Society’s day-to-day operations relied on having stable IT systems and infrastructure. Also, the computers and parts being provided by this company were non-standard, as they were using white box PCs. At that time, St Vincent de Paul Society’s IT infrastructure was supporting about 70 employees and was unreliable leading to staff frustrations and their inability to perform the important social and humanitarian functions.
The challenge F1 Solutions faced was to minimise the disruption of IT problems SVDP was facing by creating a ICT environment that proactively mitigated risks and improved reliability.
The benefits for SVDP
Not only do SVDP partner with F1 Solutions for the day-to-day management of their IT operation, but they also see F1 as a trusted advisor and consult us on all matters relating to ICT. This is because through years of working with them the team at F1 have developed a deep understanding of their strengths, constraints and challenges and have done the right thing by them.
From the days of viewing IT as simply a necessity cost, SVDP now view IT as an asset, which is evident in how they explore new ways that IT can assist SVDP by utilising Microsoft Surface tablets, cloud solutions, and disaster recovery solutions.
In addition to the benefit of having a trusted partner to consult for all ICT matters, SVDP have also experienced the following benefits:
Increased operational efficiency and cohesiveness
Decreased disruptions caused by IT problems
Increased productivity
An enhanced user experience
More robust management plans
A premium solution
F1 Solutions created a proactive IT operating environment; minimising the impact of IT problems on the organisation. This was done by monitoring their ICT systems, servers, network and devices 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to pick up on any emerging issues and fix them before they became significant problems that impacted the organisation. This instantly minimised disruptions to the day-to-day business of St Vincent de Paul Society Canberra/Goulburn.
F1 also transitioned their white box PCs and replaced them with Dell desktops – a Tier 1 desktop supplier. This replacement strategy not only significantly improved reliability and serviceability, it also yielded considerable cost savings. F1 also introduced a Standard Operating Environment for all PCs and laptops. This meant that when a desktop/laptop failed it could be replaced easily with little disruption to their operation, and the desktop would appear the same on the new computer ensuring productivity and the same user experience was maintained.