Helping educators stay within budget

Challenge

Technology now plays an essential part in all aspects of education. IT is crucial to the running of educational establishments but IT and technology generally is now also a vital part of the learning experience for students and in preparing them for life outside the world of education. However IT and technology changes rapidly, and comes at a cost, which challenges educational establishments with staying within budget while meeting these key priorities.

Case study

Bluestone has many examples of working with schools, universities and colleges to meet the challenge of staying within budget while keeping up to date with the latest technology. One recent example is a specialist science school which needed to kit out a new IT suite with computers and furniture but found that they did not have sufficient budget to complete this work in one financial year.

Our Solution

We worked with the school to identify which project costs could be financed. The school was surprised that finance could work not just for the “hard” costs of the project (such as the furniture or IT equipment) but also for some of the “soft” costs, such as installation and configuration too. When combined with a lease agreement, this allowed the school to spread far more of the project cost than they anticipated over a number of years thus bringing the project comfortably within budget.