ICT Support and Asset Management still tops the list

Richmond Systems started focusing on the education sector five years ago realising that there would be a requirement to record, track and support all the IT assets that were starting to flood into schools. This decision, which seemed radical at the time, has been justified. Since 2005 we have steadily built up a long list of schools that rely upon our helpdesk solutions and when RM, the UK’s leading supplier to the Education Sector, approached us to supply our software to their customers this confirmed our initial thoughts.

Through surveying their customers RM established that 34% of them ranked helpdesk and asset management as their top priority with a further 22% putting it 2nd on the list. The recent round of “Spring Technical Seminars” made it clear that these statistics were correct as most schools that we spoke to were either using inadequate spreadsheets, or free solutions that were limited in functionality and were fast becoming ineffective.

The seminars, hosted by RM, were an effective way of understanding and addressing the issues faced by ICT departments. Two strong messages that came through were from pressured ICT teams struggling to meet the demand for ICT support and frustrated school leaders that didn’t have information about the ICT equipment they are accountable for.

With so many schools being dependent upon ICT and the pressure on budgets and resources, the need to properly manage assets and effectively deliver ICT support has never been more pressing.