The tech explosion

Kathryn Downs, director of IT at Midland Heart, which owns and manages 33,000 homes in and around Birmingham, says landlords need to look at the way they engage with customers more closely – and that technology has a key role to play.

“Digital will be key to everything we do moving forward,” she states. “Technology needs to play a key role in diversifying our communications channels. We’re already seeing it happen with a shift from call centres to social media, and we need to embrace that.”

The tragedy at Grenfell was a touchstone for the discussion. Not only did it underscore the need for closer engagement, panellists suggest, but also for customers to have confidence in the safety of homes, record-keeping, and how personal details are being shared.

Scott Black, director of housing and neighbourhoods at Catalyst, argues that organisations could achieve more if they pool resources in some areas – particularly when it comes to research.

“What does the housing sector do as a collective around digital? If we were the car industry a percentage of our profits would go into a fund for innovation in driverless cars,” argues Mr Black, whose organisation provides more than 21,000 homes in London and the South East. “We have to do more to drive technological innovation to improve customer experience.”

Offering efficiency

David Matthewman, director of IT at Hyde, which manages around 50,000 properties in London and the South East, suggests there is both a strong moral and business case for customer-focused services. “If we can service the customers more efficiently, then we can build more houses, which is what our organisations exist to do.”

Those gathered for the discussion have all been carrying out work in recent years to find out more about their residents and what they want from their landlord. This also allows for better segmentation of customers, so landlords can think about specific offers for different groups. This ranges from the most basic understanding about who is wedded to traditional forms of communication and the growing number who demand a digital dialogue, to the type of renting and ownership options that are likely to work for different groups.

There is, however, one clear direction of travel thanks to the wider operating environment.

Matt Cooney, chief operating officer at PA Housing, which has about 24,000 properties across the Midlands, London and the South East, says: “Our customers’ behaviour is already being driven towards digital. The most excluded of our residents are now claiming their benefits on a digital platform.”

Experiences with businesses like online retailers are also changing expectations.

Michael Bruton, enterprise architecture manager at Sovereign, adds: “Customers don’t live in a bubble. Digital is being used in every other industry.”

Where does the sector stand compared to others, though? Mr Bruton suggests: “Most organisations have a digital offering, but they’re a long way from being the end-to-end [solution] you’ll find in other sectors. We’re not behind in the front end [the website or app]; it’s the back end [the back-room administration and processing].”

Darren Ryland, head of ICT at Longhurst, which has 18,800 homes across the Midlands, offers a blunt assessment.

“We’ve been talking about digital for so long it feels like a bit of a faux subject. We don’t have a holistic business design; we’re dependent on legacy systems; we’re in our infancy in terms of end-to-end models; and tactical reactions to events and mergers detract from businesses’ focus on digital.”

In addition, he says there are embedded factors slowing progress. These include cultural issues, the need to rethink services such as care for digital delivery, and the challenge of competing with the private sector for skills.

The issue of consolidating information from several systems and organisations was a common bugbear.

Peter Hedderly is executive director of business change and IT at Guinness Partnership, one of the country’s largest social housing providers with 65,000 homes. “At Guinness we brought six housing associations onto the same platform,” he reports. “One of the reasons we’re behind as a sector is the depth of the data in the sector; it goes back about 30 years in some cases.

“We’ve had consultants come in who saw it as a challenge, but within a few weeks they’re scratching their heads. It’s so complex.”

Mr Cooney says: “I’m integrating two organisations and I feel like I’m rewiring a jumbo jet while it’s in flight.

“One frustration we have is the lack of a single view of the customer. We have around 42 different systems. Trying to join those things up is the devil’s own job.”

Where PA Housing has 42 separate applications, many large housing associations have 200, says Ian Stanley, director – business development at Hitachi Solutions Europe.

For the past four years Hitachi has worked with Clarion Housing Group, formed late last year through a merger of Affinity Sutton and Circle Housing, to introduce an enterprise-wide IT infrastructure and single enterprise suite.

“The advantage of that is you effectively have all your data in one place, so you see a single version of the truth, and you can have a joined-up, end-to-end process,” Mr Stanley says. “Customer services can follow a case from enquiry to solution and record it all.”

Collating data

While Hitachi Solutions provides tailored architectural software solutions to facilitate a full digital service, there is also an important role for housing associations in the process in terms of locating, retrieving, verifying and collating current data into a usable format.

For Graham Nash, project portfolio manager at Southern Housing, the scale of the challenge in shifting to enterprise-wide systems has nudged the sector to open itself up to experience from other areas. “One of the big changes since I joined Southern a year ago is that the business is supporting IT in making digital happen, and part of that has been strengthening the skills base.” he says. “So I haven’t recruited staff from housing but from the private sector, for their knowledge, drive and new ideas.”