Case Study: Whanganui District Council achieves reduced IT overhead and improved network visibility with Cisco Meraki

Meraki helping IT team minimise overhead costs with its ease of use & visibility

Whanganui District Council, which supports nearly 300 staff across 10 sites including libraries, museums and galleries, faced rising overheads and inefficient management from a controller‑based wireless setup. The council turned to Cisco Meraki, adopting Meraki MR wireless access points and Systems Manager Enterprise MDM with the cloud‑based Meraki dashboard to simplify deployments, centralize visibility, and reduce ongoing operational burden.

Using Cisco Meraki, the IT team created separate Meraki networks for each site, cloned master configurations for fast rollouts, and deployed Systems Manager on 170+ iPhones and 60+ iPads. The solution delivered rapid provisioning (network creation and inventory updates in minutes), remote troubleshooting (quickly identifying a cabling fault), reliable guest Wi‑Fi, location analytics for library KPIs, reduced printing/courier costs, and lower staffing overhead — contributing to Whanganui being named an ICF Smart21 and one of the Top 7 Intelligent Communities.

Whanganui District Council

Jason Simons

CIO