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HP for Education 2020 (HPfE), HP’s schools and colleges programme, has been warmly received by its channel partners and is now on track to enjoy its “most successful year ever”.
It is the first year that the programme has been entirely managed by Consenna, the consultancy specialising in sales effectiveness programmes for global IT companies.
Comprised of three key pillars: HP Tech Trade In which enables schools, colleges and parents across the UK and Ireland to trade in older hardware to receive cash or, uniquely, ‘Staff Room’ credits towards the purchase of new teaching and learning solutions; HP for Education Specialists who advise and assist schools and colleges as well as sharing ed tech best practice; and HP Learnability which supports lower-income families to spread the cost of a student computing device.
Furthermore, HPfE 2020 has been significantly expanded with the inclusion of an ‘HP Learning @ Home’ feature on the HP for Education website to provide support for educators, students and parents during the unprecedented and sudden shift to home learning.
When developing HPfE 2020, Consenna engaged with selected HP education partners in a series of workshops to ensure it delivered the necessary support and tools to those partners, to maximise its value and success. Doing so has been pivotal to the success of this year’s programme as Paul Thompson, commercial director at Consenna, explained: “The support of HP’s leading education partners has been pivotal in elevating the programme so significantly. Many have embraced the value and impact of the enhancements we’ve made which has undoubtedly enabled them to engage more effectively with schools and colleges at such a challenging time.
“To put this into context, during just the first six months of this year’s programme, over 500 new schools have registered which equates to a 30% uplift compared to the entirety of the programme to date. This not only validates that the new programme resonates with schools, but that we’ve created it in such a way that makes it an exciting and compelling message for the channel partners to take to those schools.”
Amongst those channel partners is Brian Stoneman, director at Academy ICT, the specialist education ICT provider. He commented: “Every successful reseller requires robust supply chain support and we certainly value ours. HP is a world-class vendor that we leverage to achieve our business growth and HP for Education accelerates that even further. But that’s only possible with an excellent team to run it and that’s exactly what Consenna is.
“Many of our school clients have commented on how much better the scheme is managed this year and how welcome the personal touch is. This makes our life easier and we place enormous value on the can-do attitude displayed by the Consenna team and their lightning fast approach to resolving any issue, whether reseller or user-facing.”
Yolanta Gill, CEO at respected education solutions provider, European Electronique, added: “The tools and support materials that form HPfE’s virtual staff room, coupled with access to HP’s School Transformation Specialists, instantly appealed to the educators with whom we engage.
“However, for our sales team, it is the responsiveness of the HPfE programme team that is a real competitive advantage. The speed with which they pivoted the programme once schools were closed and the wealth of bespoke online resources available, have really made HPfE stand out in the ed tech marketplace.”
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