European Electronique wins three-year multi-school deal

Managed services contract covers 11 schools and 18 academies across the UK

European Electronique has won a three-year managed services contract with the United Church Schools Trust/United Learning Trust (UCST/ULT).

The deal, for an unspecified amount, will cover 11 schools and 18 academies across the UK, as well as a central office and a datacentre.

UCST/ULT is the largest single sponsor of academies in the UK with 20 academies, 11 schools and one City Technology College currently open and more set to open in the future.

Under the terms of the deal, European Electronique will provide technical support, hardware maintenance and a networking monitoring tool that will check the schools and acadamies' core ICT around the clock and alert the local ICT teams to any pending failures or problems.

The network monitoring tool will also allow UCST/ULT’s central office to view all schools and academies from a single network operation centre. Each school/academy will also receive regular visits from a senior engineer for a range of onsite services from health checks to working with ICT teams to reduce the amount of support calls.

Yolanta Gill (pictured), chief executive of European Electronique, said: “We were absolutely thrilled to be appointed managed services partner for UCST/ULT in this three-year contract. We have a long-standing relationship with UCST/ULT and look forward to continuing our partnership. We believe that the solutions proposed by European Electronique will support the Trust in realising their vision.”

Ian Teague, group IT director of UCST/ULT, said: “We chose European Electronique (EE) as our managed services partner for ICT support across our schools/academies because of the level of professionalism they showed and their experience in supporting multi-network schools and academies.

“Managers are always advised to surround themselves with people who complement their skills rather than replicate them and we felt the EE team best demonstrated how this could be achieved through their flexible and proactive support. We felt European Electronique had the right balance between formal processes and flexibility, presenting us with a structured approach to support without tying us down with too much paperwork and red tape.”