PCYC QLD

PCYC QLD saved $500,000 on staff and infrastructure costs and can access software from any location

Case study highlights

  • Now focused on servicing the community, instead of the IT systems
  • Saved $500,000
    upfront on staff and infrastructure costs
  • Increased reliability with 99.95% system uptime since going live

The Challenge

PCYC QLD was seeking a cloud-based solution that would meet its unique requirements and support multiple offices across Queensland in metropolitan, regional and remote locations.

"We explored an on premise solution, but we would have had to spend a significant amount on infrastructure and IT setup," said General Manager - Finance Anthony Abrahams. "We decided on a cloud solution that would provide a seamless experience for the end user in terms of speed and up time."

The Solution

PCYC QLD selected TechnologyOne's OneCommunity enterprise software as a service (SaaS) solution, implementing the Financials and Human Resources & Payroll components across the business. The preconfigured OneCommunity solution has provided PCYC QLD with the benefit of TechnologyOne's experience and proven practices for the not-for-profit sector.

The TechnologyOne SaaS platform is powered by Amazon Web Services.

The Outcome

By implementing TechnologyOne's enterprise Software as a Service (SaaS) solution, PCYC QLD no longer needs to worry about infrastructure or IT specialists to manage the system, and can instead focus on running its business.

"We don't have to worry about disaster recovery, backups, firewalls or virus protection; that's all taken care of for us. Since going live we've had no issues with downtime or reliability - the system has been up 99.95% of the time," said Mr Abrahams.

"We have also improved communication between head office and our branches, by using a single solution across all operations. This has freed us up to focus on servicing the community, rather than keeping IT systems operational.

"Because of the dispersed nature of our geographic locations, implementing on premise would have been expensive. It would have cost about $500,000 in infrastructure, and an additional $150,000 ongoing per year in infrastructure and staffing costs.

"As a not-for-profit, the cost savings we have made from moving to SaaS are significant because that's money we can use elsewhere."

General Manager - Finance
PCYC QLD

As a not-for-profit, the cost savings we have made from moving to SaaS are significant because that's money we can use elsewhere.

PCYC's perspective

PCYC Queensland is a not-for-profit, member-based youth development organisation with 54 clubs across Queensland. With so many locations spread across the state, PCYC QLD did not have the IT resources to run and support an on premise setup.

"The biggest requirement for our enterprise solution was the ability to easily manage the system with our geographical challenges and limited IT resources," said General Manager - Finance Anthony Abrahams. "We needed a system we could access from anywhere.

"We came to the conclusion that we couldn't support the TechnologyOne system ourselves on premise."

Mr Abrahams said the organisation explored hosting providers, but preferred the single vendor approach offered by Software as a Service.

"We explored alternative arrangements where we would have two contracts - with the hosting provider and software vendor. But if there are any issues, the vendors all end up pointing fingers at each other and it can be hard to resolve," he said.

"We only wanted one supply contract with TechnologyOne so we had a single source of accountability, with TechnologyOne taking responsibility for running and supporting the solution.

"TechnologyOne now looks after the IT infrastructure and backend, which means the application can be driven by the people that use it, and not IT. TechnologyOne also takes care of upgrades, so we're always on the latest version of the software.

"We have no regrets moving to the cloud and it has certainly satisfied all our key requirements, reduced costs and future proofed our organisation."

Spotlight

Mr Abrahams said TechnologyOne's SaaS solution provides a future proof solution that has removed concerns about succession planning and enabled PCYC QLD to easily embrace new technologies.

"We didn't see the cloud as a short term solution, but rather a long term strategy," Mr Abrahams said.

"We asked ourselves why we would want to support someone else's software - which is really what you're doing when you install on premise - when the software is just a tool to support our business and enable us to achieve our key business goals.

"In terms of succession and redundancy, if a key person in IT moves on we don't have the issue of losing all our system knowledge. TechnologyOne continues to support the system and we never need to retrain someone else how to do it."

PCYC QLD is now exploring TechnologyOne's Ci Anywhere platform, which enables employees to access the software anywhere, anytime using smart mobile devices.

"Our goal is to be able to login to the system from any device. With Ci Anywhere, if our people are on an iPad or an iPhone or desktop, it will scale and adjust accordingly, making it totally device independent.

"It will have the added benefit of removing our branches' dependency on a Citrix Client, which has caused some issues for us in the past."

About PCYC QLD

PCYC Queensland is a not-for-profit, member based youth development organisation with 54 clubs across Queensland. The organisation facilitates and encourage participation in sporting, recreation, cultural and welfare programs with an aim to improving the lives of individual members and the development of local communities throughout the state.

PCYC QLD also offers outstanding crime prevention and youth development programs and Indigenous programs

PCYC QLD website

Publish date

01 Sep 2015

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