Customer story highlights

• Amalgamated two regional TAFEs into one organisation serving 17,000 students across northern Victoria, with TechnologyOne already embedded on both sides.
• Consolidated three separate student wellbeing systems into one.
• Building an integrated ERP foundation across HR and Payroll, Financials, and Student Management.

About NVITAFE

NVITAFE was formed on 1 January 2026 through the amalgamation of Wodonga TAFE and GOTAFE. The organisation supports more than 17,000 students and 1,000 staff across campuses in Shepparton, Wangaratta, Seymour, Benalla, Wallan, and Wodonga.

It delivers vocational qualifications from Certificate II through to Diploma, with pathways to university partners, and plays a central role in skills and training across northern Victoria.

NVITAFE’s website

The challenge: Two organisations, two of everything

Merging two TAFEs is not the same as amalgamating two companies. Wodonga TAFE and GOTAFE were separate statutory bodies, brought together through an act of parliament.

Phil Paterson, CEO of NVITAFE, has led the amalgamation from the start, with support from the newly formed NVITAFE Board.

"Bringing together two organisations does have huge complexity," Mr Paterson said.

"Different processes, different skills, different capabilities. Bringing those all together has challenges but also opportunities.

“With that size and scale, the key benefit is that we’ll be able to roll out more education to more people.”

Behind the organisational change sat a significant technology challenge. Two finance systems, two HR and payroll configurations, and two student management environments need to be brought together in phases without disrupting the experience for students or staff.

For Mr Paterson, the people side matters just as much as the systems.

"It's a change management exercise in the first instance. We've had to train a lot of our leaders around change leadership, so that we can help manage the culture of change through our organisation," he said.

"We need to make sure that we bring our people along with us."

Fortunately, both institutions were already TechnologyOne customers.

The solution: A shared foundation already in place

Both Wodonga TAFE and GOTAFE had been TechnologyOne customers since 2014. NVITAFE went into this process with a shared ERP partner already embedded on both sides, across:

• Student Management
• Financials
• Supply Chain Management
• Human Resources and Payroll
• Enterprise Content Management, and
• Enterprise Asset Management

Belinda Leskie, Executive Director Finance and Operations at NVITAFE, says that head start made a real difference.

"We weren't starting from scratch with brand new technology," Ms Leskie said.

"It was more about the business, getting to know the business, and less about how we could bring the technology together across the two organisations."

The integration is being delivered in phases: payroll first, then a full HR and payroll merge, then financial consolidation.

The two student management environments will run in parallel for approximately 18 months before being brought together.

A partnership that didn't start from scratch

For Ms Leskie, the strength of the partnership comes down to people.

Early in her time at the TAFE, she worked with a TechnologyOne AMS consultant on Enterprise Budgeting. Vocational education financials are not straightforward and finding someone who understood that complexity was a turning point.

"He is brilliant. Someone who could easily explain or listen to the problem we were trying to solve," Ms Leskie said.

"We actually wait and book time with him before we solve anything in our Enterprise Budgeting model."

That experience was repeated in 2019 when a TechnologyOne consultant spent several weeks on site during the Human Resources and Payroll implementation.

The partnership works because the people behind it understand the business.

The results: Students first, with the data to prove it

The amalgamation of the two TAFEs is still in its early stages, but with Phase 1 already complete, NVITAFE is not starting from zero. It's building on more than a decade of investment, and the results are already showing:

• Continuity of care through Student Wellbeing
• Real-time data across a dispersed organisation
• Electronic enrolment built on standard functionality

Continuity of care through Student Wellbeing

Previously, wellbeing and disability services at Wodonga TAFE were managed across three separate systems. Staff had limited visibility, and students in vulnerable situations were often asked to retell their stories to different support workers.

Alison Clark, Wellbeing Team Leader, led NVITAFE’s transition to TechnologyOne's Student Wellbeing module.

"We now use the one system instead of three," she said. “Students are not having to tell their stories over and over, which can be difficult for some students.”

"The feedback we've had is that the service has been quicker and more timely to respond, particularly for those coming through the Victorian Government's Disability Transition program."

Staff now have visibility across caseloads and case notes; meaning support continues even when someone is away, or a student moves between services.

The data also allows the team to track service delivery and identify where improvements are needed

Real-time data across a dispersed organisation

With campuses spread from Seymour to Wodonga, NVITAFE's leadership team cannot rely on being physically present to understand how the business is performing.

Data-driven decision-making is a core pillar of NVITAFE's strategy. With HR, payroll, and financials integrated through TechnologyOne, the leadership team has real-time visibility across workforce and financial performance.

"We need that visibility through data,” Ms Leskie said.

“The sooner we can get insights into what's happening on the ground, the team can make better decisions, a lot quicker, to help inform that impact on students and our community.”

Electronic enrolment built on standard functionality

One of the most tangible student-facing outcomes has been full electronic enrolment implementation.

Students can apply and enrol online using standard functionality within TechnologyOne's Student Management, without custom development.

"I'm very proud of the fact that we were able to implement full electronic enrolment of students online using standard functionality within the student management system," Mr Paterson said.

"That only occurred due to the dedication of those staff really plugging away on that and working with TechnologyOne as the key service provider."

For Mr Paterson, this is what a student-centred approach looks like in practice: the technology sits in the background, and the student experience comes first.

Advice for TAFEs? Best-in-breed isn’t always best

For TAFEs considering their technology strategy, Mr Paterson's advice is clear: think integration, not individual products.

"Best-in-breed has a number of challenges associated with it, including points of integration and interface, and how to extract data," Mr Paterson said.

"One of the key advantages of an ERP is that you get access to a single source of truth. You're able to reduce the cost and complexity of how to get that data, and you need that data to make informed and timely decisions."

NVITAFE chose TechnologyOne because its products are specifically designed to work together within your ERP.