Cisco Procurement Agreement with Collier County School District
Early in 2000, CIO Bill Merryman, and Director of Purchasing for Collier County School District Nancy Sirko, knew they had a challenge in front of them. As one of the fastest growing school districts in Southern Florida (located in the city of Naples) their school system needed to find a single reputable supplier of Cisco® products. A supplier who could provide the school district with the lowest possible acquisition price, while still maintaining the high level of service and flexibility they knew would be needed as they moved forward with their 3-year Cisco procurement agreement.
Design assistance, technical support, and outstanding customer service were just some of the intangibles that they knew would be difficult to write into their RFP, but because this was their first Cisco® specific procurement agreement, they soon realized they would have to take some risks. These issues were on their minds when Direct Sales, a sales division of Bizco Technologies out of Lincoln, Nebraska, was the low bidder on the RFP. Would Direct Sales be able to deliver the high level of customer service and support with their headquarters nearly 1,500 miles away in Nebraska?
The award went to Direct Sales and Bizco was quickly put to the test as Collier began a county-wide upgrade of their infrastructure. Under the account management of Kent Marshall from Direct Sales, Colliers’ expectations have not only been met, but have been exceeded, according to Nancy Sirko, the Director of Purchasing for Collier County School District. “Kent has always been there when we needed him, and we have experienced outstanding service.”
A testimony to this was confirmed by lead technician Dave Gronlund during a recent side visit by Kent Marshall, and company president, Paul Zoz. “One time during an installation I had a serious problem with a new chassis I was installing, and I knew I needed some help. One call to Kent, and I had a Cisco support engineer on the line, as well as warehouse personnel, coordinating not only next day replacement of the equipment, but offering to deliver the equipment to the school the very next day which was Saturday!”
Direct Sales has worked hard to maintain this level of service to Collier County Schools, and expects the relationship to continue. “We are working towards continuing the county-wide upgrade to Cisco technology as well as working to establish wireless connectivity in many of the schools. I am truly excited about what we have accomplished, and what we will be accomplishing in the future at Collier County.”, stated Kent Marshall.
“We continue to make progress in moving forward”, said Paul Zoz, of Bizco. “During our most recent visit to Collier, we announced that they could now review all of their product invoices online over the Internet with product serial number search capability. That may seem like a minor feature to most of us, but the technicians were excited about being able to access this information on-line.”
Collier County Schools is just one example of how Bizco Technologies uses a local touch at a national and global level.
