About Emmanuel College

Trusted IT provider creates opportunities for broader capabilities, growth & better services

Emmanuel College, St Lucia, Brisbane is a not for profit organisation that is part of the University of Queensland. Emmanuel College provides accommodation to 360 students and residential tutors of The University of Queensland.

The College has a number of different groups it services including staff, students and guests who stay and use the campus for conferences that the College hosts throughout the year.

Services Cymax was engaged to manage

It was important Emmanuel College engaged an IT service provider who could offer them the best solutions to manage their extensive IT requirements. This includes the introduction of state of the art wireless capabilities throughout the College and its grounds, and the installation of approximately 360 Wireless Access Points (WAPs).

Cymax was employed by Emmanuel College to manage the provision of all IT services, including Managed IT Services, Cloud Solutions and IT Support, plus the implementation and management of hardware, software and databases. Cymax also oversees the College’s Disaster Recovery Testing and Solutions to ensure the College’s information is safe and meets compliance requirements.

A substandard IT experience 

Emmanuel College’s Business Manager, Anthony Welsh said prior to engaging Cymax in 2014, the IT services and products they were using provided a substandard infrastructure. When there was a service outage, they experienced a poor response time or in some instances, no response at all. There was little opportunity to recognise and seek new solutions for improvements – so services and capabilities were limiting.

Systems were neglected, unreliable and in some cases, the systems didn’t work at all.

A consultative approach and tailored solution

To identify the most suitable solution for Emmanuel College, Anthony and Sean Dendle, Director of Cymax began discussions, entering a collaborative approach so a bespoke solution could be developed for the College.

“We did have some idea on what services and products we needed, but Cymax was also able to work closely with us to assess and customise a package for Emmanuel College – ensuring our goals were met,” Anthony explained.

“We spent a long time discussing exactly what we do and what we needed for optimised IT outcomes. The consultative approach made the process very easy. Sean was responsive to our ideas. He knew what we needed and was able to advise which solution and / or product we required. Sean explained things well,” Anthony added.

Migrating to Cymax and the outcome

Anthony said they knew about Cymax as another College had engaged them. “We had other providers submit proposals but Cymax offered the best proposal.”

Following months of discussions, Cymax’s services were officially implemented in January 2016. Despite this short period of time, Emmanuel College has already experienced the benefits of a more focused IT solution.

Other improvements include having a reliable IT network infrastructure; if there is an issue, response times are far shorter and managed by Cymax staff, which Anthony said “…clearly know what they are doing and have the required skills to meet our goals”.

The performance of the infrastructure has improved significantly. The speed is much better. “From flaky Wi-Fi to state of the art Wi-Fi. We now have the ability to provide services for our customers at a much higher standard than before,” Anthony said. Security, website blocking and management is also better than before.

“Technically, there were some issues transferring from one provider to another, but Cymax went above and beyond to iron these out.”

“In terms of price, quality, professionalism and products, they are excellent on every level.”

Cymax has provided a platform to allow Emmanuel College to move forward. “The service offering and expertise of Cymax will likely reveal other areas for enhancements on services that we now have the potential to recognise and implement that we couldn’t do before. In my experience over the last 30 years, Cymax is the best IT provider I have worked with. I’d certainly recommend them,” Anthony added.