The Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand (PCANZ) is a community of more than 30,000 active members and 400 parishes around New Zealand. It is served by a General Assembly office of around 35 staff, who provide advice and support in areas including finance, communications, human resources and health and safety.
While the General Assembly has big responsibilities, the organisation is too small to warrant having a dedicated IT person on staff. Instead, it signed an agreement with Techtonics five years ago to provide contract support services.
“Techtonics provides day-to-day helpdesk services, hardware and server maintenance, and helps us out with advice on where we should be planning to invest our IT budget to gain improved productivity over the longer term,” says PCANZ Finance Manager Brendan Sweeney.
“Last year we asked Techtonics to manage a hardware upgrade and software restructuring project. As a result of that capital expenditure, our IT systems are now better suited to the needs of the organisation, our operating costs have reduced by about a third and we are expecting further operational cost savings.
The relationship with Techtonics is going well, Sweeney says. “We get a quick response to enquiries and have a dedicated support person who visits us weekly to provide support and advice.”
A key project has been the implementation of MessageLabs' managed security services to replace a server-based anti-spam and virus system. “MessageLabs has made a huge difference. Before, we were getting a lot of spam but now, we get virtually none,” Sweeney explains.
Techtonics conducts a two-yearly strategic audit of the IT environment to enable PCANZ to identify and plan for required upgrades to software and hardware, and to create a roadmap and budget for new initiatives. Over the last two years, it has helped PCANZ rationalise its server environment, upgrade its IT infrastructure,developed a disaster recovery plan and is currently redeveloping a core CRM system.
