StarOffice Used by Central Singapore Community Development to Train Grassroot Leaders

Huge Cost Savings Achieved

Organization

• Central Singapore Community Development Council (CS CDC)

Industry

• Community/Service

Configuration

• StarOffice5.2 Productivity Suite


• PCs with Windows 98

Challenges

• Train Grassroot leaders with basic office productivity skills


• Lower cost of training programme

Results

• Deployment of StarOffice on 140 PC terminal


• Huge cost savings because of free licenses


• Distribution of free Cds to grassroot participants

Central Singapore Community Development Council wanted to train its grassroot leaders in its districts in basic word processing and spreadsheet software. It chose StarOffice 5.2 as the office productivity deployment platform because no software licenses need to be purchased. As a result, it was able to achieve huge cost-savings in deploying its training programme.

Installation of StarOffice5.1 in 140 terminals

The Central Singapore Community Development Council (CS CDC) was established in November 1997 to serve the residents of Central Singapore District. This districts covers nearly 100,000 households consisting of about 450,000 residents.

As part of its training initiatives, it preinstalled StarOffice5.2 at 140 PC terminals located at various RCs (Resident Committee Centres) which act as convenient IT access points for the residents. The goal was to impart its grassroot leaders with basic office productivity skills. Yet, such a deployment and training programme would have easily cost thousands of dollars if commercially-available office suites such as Microsoft Office were purchased.

"Using StarOffice5.2 allowed us to gain huge-cost savings while meeting the objectives of training our grassroot leaders." said Gilbert Fernandez , Deputy General Manager, Central Singapore Community Development Council. "It includes the necessary modules such as word processing and spreadsheet functions, which we wanted our grassroots to learn and use."

By using StarOffice, CS CDC estimates that it saved more than S$40,000 in cost avoidance.

Comprehensive StarOffice Training Package
To complement its deployment of the StarOffice suites, CS CDC embarked on a strategy to train all its grassroot leaders. It also gave away copies of StarOffice CDs so that these could be installed at their homes. Till date, with the help of Cyberland Computer School, it still conducts StarOffice training at its eClub@Kampong Glam premises.

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