Site MapCanterbury Development Corporation
Virtualised Cloud Solution driving Canterbury forward
For over 25 years, Canterbury Development Corporation (CDC) has focused on stimulating the economic development of the Canterbury region.
Through activities focused on export-ready companies and sectors, the organisation concentrates on building a capability of initiating and implementing change, developing priority sectors and leading major regional projects.
As part of their Canterbury regional economic development strategy, CDC endeavours to gain a deep understanding of Canterbury business in general and the companies that contribute to the region's economic development.
They share their economic analysis, workforce and investment expertise regularly through formal and informal programmes that help make the local economy grow.
CDC has a number of priorities to help the region prosper, including: providing economic development leadership, offering a range of business support services, focusing on industry sectors and businesses that have the potential to grow the economy, supporting long-term infrastructure development and helping to coordinate a local response to current economic conditions.
Canterbury Development Corporation has an overall purpose of enhancing Christchurch's quality of life through economic development.
Taking control of their IT resource
For more than 25 years the Christchurch City Council, CDC's parent body, hosted and managed the organisation's IT resource. With the increasing use of technology in business, and a desire to use emerging technologies, CDC decided to take ownership of their own IT platform.
The organisation wanted to utilise the latest technology, increase security and functionality and enhance support. "We were getting to the point where we needed to think seriously about where our IT resource was heading. ICT is a key business sector for us in Christchurch and we felt as the economic development agency we needed to take a lead in our IT approach", says Bill Luff, CDC's Chief Executive.
Virtualised cloud solution delivers efficiency
CDC audited their existing IT infrastructure, identified areas they wanted to enhance and evaluated potential vendors through an RFP process.
“We were worried that we were going to get a horrible fright as to how much an enhanced infrastructure would cost as we'd being managed by the Council for so long, but we were very pleasantly surprised,” says Lindsay Prescott, CDC's IT Manager.
CDC chose Datasouth as the preferred provider of a fully hosted solution.
“We had a reasonably sophisticated assessment process and Datasouth came out to be the best proposal in terms of reliability, quality and service,” says Bill.
CDC manages the day-to-day management of their IT resource, including setting up new users and web filtering. Datasouth takes care of the back end, which includes server maintenance, helpdesk support, performance measurement, backups and additional IT projects that arise.
“Datasouth keeps the engine running in the background. We didn't want any servers here onsite. By hosting our IT resource in the cloud, we were able to free up resources here, increase our level of IT support and decrease our risks of failure,” says Lindsay.
Latest technology modernises organisation
The solution saw CDC implement latest technology, including Windows 7.
“We've leaped up to seven years in most of the technology we implemented, which in IT terms is huge,” says Lindsay.
“Datasouth handled the changeover extremely well. They really understood our specific needs and ensured they were met during the transition,” he adds.
Increased email and internet download capacity means the organisation is not constrained by large emails or file downloads, and remote access functionality has opened up the organisation's ability to work remotely more efficiently.
“In the past the only way to work outside the office was to use a laptop provided by the Council. Now, regardless of location, CDC staff are able to access emails, files and the intranet securely and efficiently,” says Bill.
“The solution has met our expectations, with the huge benefit being remote access. It's now so much more user friendly. We can access our servers directly from anywhere so it's just like being at work, and because I do a lot of my computer work after hours, for me that's just gold.”
A secure and stable platform for growth
The fully hosted cloud solution has positioned CDC for growth, and further areas they are currently investigating are an integrated CRM solution, and a collaborative company platform such as SharePoint.
They are also currently in the process of re-developing their website that will include more information and tools that will enable people to interact with the CDC electronically.
“We would absolutely recommend Datasouth to other companies wanting to virtualise their IT. They really understand the SME market and provided value in their offering. We also appreciated that they are a locally owned Canterbury business,” says Bill.
“Datasouth worked hard with our IT team to ensure the smooth and successful implementation. They are very professional and responsive when we need them.”
“It's been great as far as I'm concerned and it's completely changed the way I work. We have moved from being constrained by our ICT platform to now being constrained by our imagination.”
