Case study : Lord Lawson of Beamish Community School

DfES Designated Specialist Arts College

“rock had not only quoted for the specification I had requested but had also quoted for a higher specification machine that was backed by their 3 year collect & return warranty and this still fell within our estimated budget.” Iain Beveridge, Business manager

As Business Manager at Lord Lawson of Beamish Community School it is my responsibility to ensure that the school utilises it’s financial resources as effectively as possible and to ensure suppliers and service providers are of the highest quality. The school is a secondary school and six-form centre with 1500 students on roll and is a DfES Designated Specialist Arts College.

Having been selected as one of counties ‘Leading Edge’ schools we are fully committed to developing new, exciting and stimulating ways of teaching and have embarked on a programme that is aimed specifically at this.

The school has set up a ‘New Technologies Group’, which consists of 15 members of staff covering a wide cross-section of disciplines. The group were to be fully loaded with Notebook computers, multi-media projectors, electronic meeting pads, digital video cameras, digital still cameras, USB memory sticks and all the necessary software.

As with any school based project budgets were an issue, as was ensuring that ‘best value’ procedures were adhered to. Getting the balance right is always tricky but finding a supplier that provides a high quality product, backed by excellent levels of pre and after sales service is even harder.

We had carried out some investigation work and knew what we wanted with regards the specification of the notebooks. The specifications were then sent to several companies including rockdirect. The quotations that I received were at first glance fairly comparable with each other. However it was then I noticed that rock had not only quoted for the specification I had requested but had also quoted for a higher specification machine that they believed would be more suited to our needs and that was backed by their 3 year collect & return warranty and this still fell within our estimated budget. Not only that, the quotation was e-mailed to me within 4 hours of the request being sent and all my questions were answered in a polite and professional manner.

The order was placed with rock for a number of their Quaddra XS and Sigma DI model notebooks at the required specification. We took delivery of notebooks within 5 working days and are delighted with them.

Since we purchased our notebooks from rockdirect, we have only used their back up service twice. Once for a faulty battery, (the machine was collected and returned within one week and has had no further problems) and the second was for advice. I had a question for them about the wireless connectivity, which was answered the same day.

Having previously worked within the customer service industry, I am very particular about the level and quality of service that we receive and I can say without reservation that rockdirect has met and exceeded my expectations.

Iain Beveridge
Business manager

Back to case studies >>