PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
Consenna has unveiled an entirely new sales enablement and trade-in programme for the education channel, driven by Microsoft and facilitated via Westcoast and a select group of 11 education resellers.
“Power Up My School” has been created to provide Microsoft vendors and its channel partners with the strongest, most compelling sales, marketing, and training resources in order to support them in the delivery of strong Microsoft school solutions.
Focused on supporting schools to make smart purchasing decisions in their continuing digital transformation journeys, as well as providing them with compelling sustainability messages to help meet CSR and greenhouse gas targets, ‘Power Up My School’ will also assist education resellers in the increasingly important areas of training so that teaching staff gain the best value from their IT devices, as well as cloud enablement.
The significance of technology in education was amplified by the shift to remote teaching and learning during the Covid pandemic but it now shows no signs of abating. Investment across both primary and secondary sectors is now focused not only on devices, but training to bring this into the classroom along with the cloud services and associated support required.
Paul Hamilton, Westcoast Client Director, comments: “The importance of technology in education is indisputable. But for it to continue delivering the value required of it, it’s vital that schools are equipped with the budgets, knowledge, and skills to fully embrace the solutions available to them. Indeed, BESA figures demonstrate just how vital appropriate training for teaching staff is.
“What Consenna has created in “Power Up My School” addresses exactly those points, whilst ensuring that our channel partners are empowered to effectively communicate the options available to schools and the support that sits alongside those.”
Offering everything from award-winning promotions support, through to customisable marketing pages and dedicated sales enablement training from Consenna, Power Up My School also provides a flexible approach to device trade-ins to support the needs of each reseller and their end customers.
Paul Thompson, Sales Director at Consenna, comments: “For schools to continue benefitting fully from the technology available to them, they must be encouraged to part with legacy devices that are holding them back.
“By developing a flexible trade-in programme, we’ve equipped resellers with the means to position trade-ins as the route to other benefits for the school, whether that’s cash rewards, training or cloud enablement support.”
Chris Rothwell, Director of Education at Microsoft, concludes: “We know that technology can have a powerful effect in education. Expanding learning opportunities, making learning more accessible and helping teachers manage workloads are just some of the benefits.
“Having access to devices is critical, but that access needs to come hand-in-hand with training and support, in order to make full use of those devices and to bring new ways of teaching and learning to life. This is why the training element of Power Up My School is so important.”
A secondary element to Microsoft and Westcoast’s partnership will see Westcoast commit to introduce up to 20 smaller resellers to the Devices for Education programme that was created by Consenna earlier this year in which Microsoft is the Principal Partner.
Read the latest edition of PCR’s monthly magazine below:
Like this content? Sign up for the free PCR Daily Digest email service to get the latest tech news straight to your inbox. You can also follow PCR on Twitter and Facebook.
