In March, specialist education reseller Winthrop in conjunction with Acer, won a three-year, $27 million tender to supply notebook computers to 16,000 public school teachers in Western Australia.
It was the second time the reseller had teamed up with Acer to win the WA Department of Education and Training’s Notebooks for Teachers (NFT) Program. The NFT provides notebooks to public school teachers throughout Western Australia and offers onsite training, support and help desk as part of the package.
Cedric Celestine, general manager of Winthrop Australia, says NFT is a “refresh” program and the company started rolling out the new machines in January. “We’re refreshing the people who received their first machines in 2001 at the moment,” he says.
While Acer ships the notebooks directly to the teachers, Winthrop has to train them wherever they are throughout the state. “Winthrop also provides the onsite warranty for the notebooks, and we assist in the pre-delivery information given to the teachers,” Celestine says.
To train 16,000 teachers in 800 schools across a huge geographical spread as West Australia, Winthrop has about six trainers. “Essentially if they have to hop on a plane and fl y to Esperance, Kalgoorlie, Broome or wherever to conduct training, that’s what we do,” he says.
Winthrop created all the training documentation and a training video for teachers in more remote places like Christmas Island.
The Department of Education and Training (DET) provides a central help desk for teachers so there’s just one number for them to call.
“Anything software-related, the DET’s help desk staff will walk them through that. Anything that’s hardware-related gets logged on to Acer’s service management software. Winthrop provides onsite service from Perth’s metro area, and Acer provides the return-to-base service for all the country areas,” Celestine says.
Winthrop also offers special deals to teachers on equipment that DET does not provide, such as extra peripheral items they can purchase at their own cost including web cams, printers, modems, routers, scanners and wireless.
Bidding process
The principles of a good pitch for notebook projects is the same irrespective of what industry sector you are working in, says Acer’s state manager for WA, Roger Heale.
“You have to understand what the outcome needs to be, what the customer wants, gain a full understanding of what they need and why they need it.”
Given that there are some substantial notebook tenders in the education sector in the wings, Celestine was understandably hedgy when it came to telling how Winthrop won the NFT tender twice in a row.
“We don’t want to give away all of our secrets because some of the readers will be our direct competition out there. But probably one of the most important things is to choose the correct vendor. Acer and Winthrop have had a long-standing very good relationship with each other and work very well together,” he says.
“If you don’t choose the right vendor or they don’t have the necessary experience then it’s a recipe for disaster.”
While it might sound trite, good communication cannot be underestimated, Heale says. “Keep good documentation all the way through the project and record all communication and meeting reports. Any changes should be formalised with documentation,” he advises.
You should also keep notes from any issues you discuss, document the goings-on of any meetings and any changes that are made so you can always refer back to them.
The department loaded and licensed all the software on the notebooks so Winthrop did not have to provide any additional applications. All teachers are entitled to introductory training on how to use their notebooks. “The course is a two-hour course, and might spend 20 minutes on Word, and 20 minutes on Excel, for example. What we did as extra value-add to this project is offer additional training to the schools and teachers on any software application they wanted, such as Adobe or PowerPoint,” Celestine says.
Security is managed by the DET and all of the notebooks come standard with inbuilt wireless network cards with Centrino processors, he says.
Wireless options come down to a school level or the individual teachers themselves. “Some schools have a wireless network, and some teachers ask us to install a wireless service for them in their homes,” he says.
While the department has gone to great lengths to make sure the notebooks have all the right software and applications the teacher needs, there will still be other items the teachers want to enable them to work from home for instance.
It is an incredible opportunity to sell add-ons and Winthrop has negotiated “very aggressive pricing for them” on side orders of programs or peripherals, Celestine says.
“Based on the past three years’ experience, we’ve made up a catalogue which goes out to every single teacher when they receive their notebook. It has a list of the peripheral items that we stock at a special price for them. Most popular are printers, scanners, digital cameras and security devices,” Celestine says.
“Teachers get basic security needs provided by DET but if they ask us to install a wireless network for them at home at their own cost, we do things like setting up firewalls and making sure their wireless network is secure,” he says.
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