richly economical
For equivalent services from commercial providers, a South West Grid for Learning school averages savings of £10,000 per year.
The education system is in a state of flux, thanks to changes in government policy and funding. In our recession-hit times, there’s extra uncertainty about the next Spending Review of 2011-2014. As for the technosphere… it’s nothing if not constantly changing and unpredictable – and yet it’s as irresistible as the future. So school leaders face a conundrum: investing in information and communication technologies is a clear priority, but this must be balanced with serious concern about current budgets and future funding.
Bright ideas cost the same whether one person gets to enjoy the light, or many. If many share the cost, the individual’s bill goes down, but the light doesn’t. That’s how we like to think of our Schools Internet Services. We negotiate hard behind the scenes to get software and services at the best possible rates, because we’re working for 2,500 schools, not just one.
Sometimes, such economies of scale come with a reduction in choice or flexibility. Not so with us. We know that different schools have different needs, and we know we wouldn’t succeed if we took a one-size-fits-all approach.
The South West Grid for Learning is a charity, so we provide your telecoms circuits at 0% margin. We’re not here to sell you things you don’t want or need. You can cherry-pick. You can pick ‘n’ mix. We’ve streamlined the services so that you don’t get flim or flam – the needs of education are different from the needs of corporations or households. We’ve added all the education options those other sectors don’t want. And we’ve added more: a built-in receptiveness to change. We even like special requests. (That’s you.)
Then we’ve simplified the lot, so that acquiring, installing, hosting, caching, maintaining, upgrading, billing – in fact, everything is in one package, not many. Don’t you like the sound of one reliable point of contact? One local service for all your localised needs? One clear invoice from one affordable provider? A service that is future-proof and guaranteed to work? That’s our richly economical approach to connectivity.