How we saved Esher Sixth Form College £120,000

This blog was initially published by Academia here. Academia supplies IT software and hardware, as well as professional training, to schools and colleges. 

The Academia Software Team recently supported Esher Sixth Form College for their Adobe licensing requirements, resulting in a huge financial saving and a very satisfied customer. Find out more by reading the thoughts of Daniel Loughlin, IT Director at Esher SFC.

Firstly, tell us about Esher Sixth Form College and how Adobe is used by students and teaching staff.
Esher Sixth Form College has a student population of 2000, with a faculty of 200 staff. We run a mixture of A-Level and BTEC courses, with Adobe Creative Cloud used extensively by students taking our creative courses. Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects and Adobe Audition are used for Media and Film, and Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign used across all the Arts, such as Fashion, Fine Art, 3D Design, Graphic Communication and Art and Design. Many other subjects also make use of the apps, such as Computer Science and IT, plus Acrobat is also utilised across the College by staff for creating and editing PDF documents.

By engaging with the Software Team at Academia, what was the benefit to Esher?
As an SFCA college, our attention was brought to how working with an Adobe Elite Partner, like Academia, could help us in terms of understanding the various licensing models. In particular, we sought to understand how to take advantage of the new VIP K-12 licensing available to Sixth Form Colleges.

We were initially facing a £120,000 cost to license our students for home use during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, working with Academia to move the SFCA VIP deal from ETLA has saved us a small fortune this year.

Going forward, the VIP deal will save us a few hundred pounds a year, compared to our old ETLA agreement, and provides the huge added benefit of named user licensing for students, which allows them to use the Adobe products at home.

How was your overall experience in dealing with the Academia team for your Adobe licensing?
It’s easy to highlight the incredible saving Esher has made as the headline of our engagement with the Academia team, but it’s worth pointing out how much we valued their level of expertise. Not only in relation to the financial savings, but also in terms of ensuring the investment we have made is fit for purpose and aligns with our plans to keep our students productive.

By making this saving, what are the immediate benefits to Esher?
By saving over £120,000 with our Adobe licensing, we are now able to repurpose this funding in other ways such as enhancing the learning experience during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s obvious to say, but at a time when budgets are tighter than ever, and education in general is going through its biggest transformation in a generation, this saving has given us an invaluable bonus of freeing up our budget to cope with these additional pressures.

For other institutions looking at a large-scale Adobe project, what advice would you give them before they sign on the dotted line?
Whilst it sounds like a cliché, it’s worth putting in the time and diligence when taking on a large-scale IT project. Part of this is to identify a strong partner, like Academia, that are able to understand your needs, including any challenges, and put forward a suitable solution.

Don’t assume that what you are planning to implement is the best solution for you – take the time to engage with a company like Academia. For us at Esher, it’s clear to see why Academia have attained the Elite Partner accreditation.