How this company strives to democratise mental health care with the support of Mac
Securing sensitive and confidential mental health data is no small feat, here’s how this mental health tech start-up is aiming to democratise the mental wellness landscape with the support of Mac.
Making mental healthcare accessible is a noble feat that takes courage, strength, heart, and power.
Panda, a champion tech start-up organisation driven to democratise mental health care accessibility and affordability across SA, takes on this bold task with pride.
“At Panda, we’re trying to democratise mental health care and reduce the barriers that exist around stigma, cost, and people not knowing how to navigate the system,” shares Panda Founder & Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Alon Lits.
As a B2B-focused business, their team helps provide proactive mental health care support for employees. As a tech-driven business dealing with such a tender topic – they need to be supported with devices they can rely on and trust to handle their app and website code as well as company data with grace and ease.
This is why Lits believes investing in the best tech from Mac was a ‘no-brainer’ decision.
“When we were deciding what equipment to use for our team – Mac was the answer,” he shares.
Mandy Muchnick, the company’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) adds that adopting Mac into their business’s finance department has significantly helped them to improve productivity and efficiency.
“Just having the simple thing where your device is less susceptible to viruses, your load times are much faster - really gets us more productive and efficient out the starting blocks,” Muchnick explains.
With the sensitive and confidential data that Panda collects and collates, the company maintains SOC 2 auditing compliance. This means that their team makes use of a data auditing procedure that ensures the protection and privacy of their company and client data.
“We use our SOC 2 Audit firm and their software to monitor all of our Mac devices and we use that ecosystem essentially to manage all of that,” unpacks Dave Blakey, Panda’s Chief Technology Officer.
Running through process-heavy software is a seamless process with Mac – something the Panda software developers are grateful for. One of Panda’s software developers, Dembe Tshifaro explains why Mac is the smartest choice when running security and data software.
“With most laptops, you’ll probably have to get a really high spec one in order to do normal software dev, but with the Mac – like your basic entry-level Mac can actually get you up and running with no problem,” he shares.
Muchnick also added that the ability Mac has to seamlessly integrate with third-party apps and programmes offers her team peace of mind when needing to invest in and adopt new software tech for their team’s workflow.
Another feature their team finds value in the Mac workstations is the ability to multitask between apps and programmes quickly and seamlessly. Panda’s Chief of Staff, Sasha Jones, explains that something as simple as being able to swipe up and switch between apps quickly has helped improve her productivity and save her time.
Putting their trust and sensitive data in the capable hands of Mac has led the Panda team to open up a business account with iStore.
“It’s a very easy process to get a new machine shipped to our new joiners,” shares Lits. The devices they send out are primed and ready to go for their new team members and updated with the relevant software, programmes, apps, and more that their new starts will need off the bat.
“There’s nothing better than a new Mac arriving at your door on your first day – it sends the right message from day one,” Lits adds.
This business partnership also allows their team to benefit from the trade-in offers from iStore. “When it’s time to upgrade to the next iteration, whether it’s for the new chipset or we need more memory and machines, it’s great to know that we can trade them in,” explains Blakey.
“We get excellent trade-in prices to upgrade to the next model of Mac and just kind of continue the journey,” Blakey adds.
Invest in the best for your team with Mac and Apple devices by visiting your local iStore today to learn more about the M1 and M2 range of MacBook Air and MacBook Pro here.
For more information on iStore’s offerings for businesses, please click here.
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