AS A LEADING provider of vocational and professional education in the country, the Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec) has mapped out its key business technology projects for 2016 to focus primarily on business intelligence, customer relationship management, digital workplace and digital learning technologies.

In line with such, IT director Bradley Vines says Wintec will be implementing some exciting new initiatives over the next 12 months, including predictive analytics, enhancements to the digital workplace, business process automation, and federated login to improve BYOD experiences, as well as digital classroom and collaboration technologies which will combine on-campus and remote learners in collaborative sessions.

He says the institute will also continue their investments in cloud services, customer experience technologies and wireless infrastructure.

“ICT staffing numbers will remain steady this year, but the number of projects and associated budgets will increase up to 10 per cent from last year,” he states.

Vines discloses that the 30-member ICT team supports a huge number of devices. “The organisation owns around 200 smartphones, but we support over 300 staff-owned devices, and 20,000+ smartphones, tablets and laptops owned by students and guests to our six campuses.

“We don’t control or restrain any of these devices. Staff and students are free to use their personal devices in any way they choose, without requiring any specific software or settings to access Wintec’s IT services. If they run into any trouble, we’ll support them, regardless of device or operating system.”

In 2015, Vines says the biggest improvement delivered by IT for the institute was the new online enrolment portal, which was consequently automated and integrated with CRM, BI, and the Student Management System.