Background
Australia’s longest serving mental health provider, Stride was founded during a time when mental health was poorly understood, valued and funded by the government, resulting in loneliness and isolation for many patients and individuals after mental health hospital care.
Their origin story begins in 1907 when founder Emily Paterson, blind yet a renowned pianist and composer, set her path to creating a post-hospital community-centric solution that helps people find ‘a safe place to live, work and find friendships.’
Ultimately, Stride was established with the purpose of providing support and specialist services, including safe hubs, NDIS services and residential services to improve the mental health and livelihood of children and people of all ages in society. Over the years, Stride has supported more than 17,000 people nationwide. With a team of 800 staff and more than 50 key services offered nationally to these communities, technology plays a critical role in ensuring people can stay connected and continue to support their mental health journey through the services and care offered by Stride.
Helping people have a better day, today and tomorrow – Stride
Challenges
The prominent challenges during the COVID-19 Pandemic were globally recognised and experienced by all. For the tech industry, It required a shift in ways of thinking and approaching IT procurement and management for businesses, with delays to parts, supplies and delivery of IT products and equipment. For national non-for-profit organisations such as Stride, the period during and after COVID-19 presented major obstacles in securing-reliable hardware stock, particularly for in-demand employee laptops sourced from HP. The HP Wifi model All In One desktop was especially difficult to secure stock for. This presented issues for Stride in making their standard bulk orders with Virtu.
As a government listed service provider, Stride also has strict guidelines and approvals surrounding the types of IT models sourced for employees and the business which meant it was not only a matter of finding quick solutions, but the right solutions.
Solution
The Virtu team understood it to be an imperative to understand Stride’s exact requirements at the given time and for the next few months. After examining the options, Virtu proposed the 3PL (Third-Party Logistics) model, a service which helps customers with warehouse and inventory management. 3PL was an ideal solution for Stride as it allowed the organisation to take advantage of bulk pricing when stock was secured, particularly before future price increases. Virtu was able to successfully source the models requested by Stride and find the quantities required to be secured in 3PL as a proactive measure during the pandemic.
Digital transformation and mobility solutions were two aspects of Stride’s IT procurement requirements which established the longstanding trust and partnership between Stride and Virtu. A loyal client of Virtu for close to 8 years, Stride and Virtu were able to present an honest and open conversation about the concerns, timelines and alternatives to ultimately deliver a successful outcome for the non-for-profit organisation.