Customer Case Study – Core Education

Visibility meets Sustainability

For nearly 20 years, CORE Education has strived to address inequities facing learners in Aotearoa New Zealand.

From a small team of 10 in 2003, to a company with over 140 staff in 2022, CORE has grown into a force for change in the educational landscape. Today, CORE draws strength from their whakapapa as they continue to push boundaries in education and drive Aotearoa New Zealand towards a more equitable and learner-centred future.

Keryn, who has been with CORE for 12 years, has worked in many parts of the company. She is now a member of CORE’s Senior Leadership Team, and leads Te Aho Waihanga, the company’s Design Solutions group.

Key Customer Wins

Scalability allows operations to grow alongside the company
Ability to see sales pipeline and where value lies
Real-time visibility across all company operations
Cloud-based system fits the needs of CORE’s diverse team – including office-only, hybrid, and remote staff across the country
In-depth data collection enables advanced decision-making

Driving organisation-wide change

“NetSuite is supporting us and driving the change we want to make.”

Why Core Education chose NetSuite ERP

In the face of continuous growth, the benefits of jumping to a scalable cloud-based system were increasingly obvious to the team. According to Keryn, CORE required “an enterprise resource planning tool like NetSuite – we were very much running on spreadsheets and disparate disconnected systems, and we were outgrowing those systems.”

“We really needed to find something that would take us into a space where we could scale, be sustainable, and understand our business a lot better,” Keryn says.

The CORE team were searching “not only for a really compatible technology solution”, but also a flexible tool that would suit the needs of their diverse team. “Our team is spread across the country. So, we have people who are office-based, hybrid and virtual across the entire company. We were looking for something that would be fit for all of them,” Keryn says.

By 2017, CORE had transformed from running around 20 large projects to managing over 650 projects, both large and small, at any given time. This highlighted a need for increased financial visibility and standardisation of processes. “We too had far too many moving parts, and far too much complexity in the business to keep running in that way,” Keryn says.

Key Benefits of NetSuite

NetSuite solved a massive pain point that was hindering CORE’s ability to move forward – a lack of visibility across their ever-expanding operations. The move to NetSuite affirmed for CORE that they “can make better decisions because of what we can see,” Keryn says.

The move to NetSuite “wasn’t just about our business well-being, it was about our people’s well-being,” Keryn says. Now the CORE team can better manage their time and maximise the value of their work – resulting in mutually beneficial outcomes for staff, CORE, and the communities they serve.

Impactful mahi

CORE Education is focused on achieving a positive impact for learners, specifically those disadvantaged by inequity.

The trusted national provider of high-quality, learning-related products and services utilises a diverse array of skills and expertise in their mahi (work) to address learner inequity. This ranges from research and thought leadership, content design and development, to professional and personal learning services. Regardless of the medium, CORE is seeks to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi in the design and delivery of their services.

Supporting sustainable action

While CORE is already largely paper-free, NetSuite has contributed by further digitising operations and utilising NetSuite’s powerful cloud-based system.

Cloud access across Aotearoa

Increased flexibility and efficiency as a cloud-based system allows staff across the country to access up-to-date data.

Actionable data

NetSuite lets CORE make data-driven decisions on how to move their vision forward.

Partnering with Liberate I.T.

After a rigorous RFP process, CORE’s journey with Liberate I.T. took off. They “won us over in terms of the alignment to our values,” and “there was a real compatibility” between us, says Keryn.

CORE’s implementation process was not without hard work, but Keryn says that “flipping the switch was really smooth” and go-live in June of 2021 was “remarkably easy.”

The project stayed on budget, but Keryn admits the “quite ambitious” timeline needed to be pushed back. Upgrading to NetSuite was “like going from a Cessna to a 747 – we needed to learn how to fly this thing!”

Although it took time for people across the CORE team to adjust, within weeks positive feedback began to emerge about the impact of NetSuite’s powerful visibility capabilities.

If your company is all about people and values-driven, then Liberate I.T. is “definitely worth picking up the phone for.”

The possibilities for improvement are endless.

We know that we can get more systems talking to NetSuite and make the work a bit easier. The possibilities for improvement are endless.

Download the Full Case Study

If you would like to download a pdf copy of our Core education case study, you can do so using this form.

"*" indicates required fields

We come recommended.

By gaining an in-depth understanding of your business goals, our team will work to uncover exactly what’s holding you back, and then tailor a NetSuite solution to meet your unique needs.

Liberate I.T. have grown with us over the last five years – and from strength to strength in terms of resources. They’re a partner that you can send everything to, from random left field questions to your big lofty goals – and they’ll tell you honestly whether they’re good ideas or not!

Mel Otto

ECOSTORE

Liberate I.T. really understood our business and how to customise the NetSuite system as we needed. They offered elements that we knew we needed, but hadn’t thought of – like multiple currencies. We still chat with our Liberate I.T. team weekly about bits and bobs, assistance and tweaking.

Heather Richards

ECOSURE

Liberate I.T and NetSuite were right for us, for our needs and for our size. Our previous solution’s steps were out of order, so it created a lot more work at the other end. NetSuite enabled us to focus on proper throughput – it’s helped us reflect on and improve our manufacturing processes too.

Shaun Veldman

GO HEALTHY

It has been a pleasure working with Liberate I.T. over the past 10 years. They have great capabilities across NetSuite implementation and consultation, and helped us modernise and transform some very old-fashioned and dysfunctional business processes.

Craig Pinker

Noveli

Liberate I.T. provided excellent training so we could carry out our NetSuite implementation. The knowledge and experienced team were quick to understand our business requirements and offer us the most relevant NetSuite advice so we were up and running as seamlessly as possible.

Marina Hirst Tristram

Tasman Bay Food Group

We needed a tool that was powerful and versatile enough to handle demand planning, warehouse management, that had freedom of ease for customisation – and was able to bring the full staff to the system regardless of whether they were on or off site. We knew Liberate I.T. and NetSuite could deliver.

Claire Harney

TOOLWARE

As we went through the process of selecting a replacement ERP solution for our growing business, NetSuite and Liberate I.T. came out consistently on top. The architecture that’s built for the internet stood out – as did the desire by Oracle NetSuite to be number one in their category.

Andrew White

JURALCO

Let’s make it happen.

Find out for yourself why we’re a NetSuite dedicated company – and how NetSuite can accelerate your business’s operations today.

Get Started

What our clients are saying

As we went through the process of selecting a replacement ERP solution for our growing business Netsuite and Liberate I.T came out consistently on top. Liberate I.T were our preferred vendor as they live and breathe Netsuite and have done so for ten years.

Andrew White

Juralco

You made the whole project an enjoyable and exciting experience that has been key in moving the business forward in leaps and bounds!

Murray Sellars

Packline Solutions

The change over from old program to NetSuite was made easy by their vast knowledge and being able to adapt the program to our style of business and recommend changes to save time.

Lyn Chapman

Prestige Produce

They ensured our implementation of JCurve/NetSuite was seamless to our customers and since the cut-over has continued to assist us with progressively expanding the NetSuite capabilities within our company.

Peter Davis

Point to Point Distribution

Liberate I.T. has the unique characteristics of in-depth understanding of the NetSuite application and business process to offer businesses an optimal system for their business to operate. They are quick to identify and interpret needs and have a broad and practical experience to know what works.

Lucas Vear

Viatek Pty Ltd

I've worked closely with these guys for over 3 years now and would recommend them highly. Everyone takes a keen interest in finding the right solution for our needs, which is a feat, considering our needs are far from 'generic'.

Joshua Brownlie

Bulleen Screens

Liberate IT have helped shape our company's future direction with their thorough understanding and professional implementation of our NetSuite package. Highly recommend.

Julian Smith

Nationwide Waste