Housing Technology 2015 Conference
1st Touch: Delivering the ‘smart’ home
Speaker: Greg Johns, Sales Director
An insight into the technology roadmap for housing associations and residents that takes a look at past, present and future technologies as they move towards the ‘smart’ home. Housing providers continue to adopt rapidly evolving technologies in their efforts to streamline and improve service and cost efficiencies, while ultimately ensuring help for the tenant to combat the challenges of welfare reform. Greg Johns will discuss how technology will evolve over the next five years to deliver the smart home and what this will mean for housing providers and residents, from how it will save money for both, to how it will transform service delivery and experience.
Aareon: istay@home: Using technology to help the ageing population
Speaker: Stephen Makin, Managing Director
Europe’s ageing population will increase in the coming decades, according to the EU’s 2012 ‘Ageing’ report. It is estimated that we will see Europe’s population of people over 65 years of age increase from 17% to 30%. Clearly, this will present major challenges in terms of both economic, social and health related issues for all EU countries. This issue is also making the agenda within the UK Social Housing and Care sector, because although people may be living longer, it is therefore likely that care and support needs will increase.
Adactus Housing Group: Social housing 2.0 – what does it look like?
Speakers: Paul Lees, Group Chief Executive and Brian Moran, Group Director of Corporate Services
In less than a decade, ‘web 2.0’ fundamentally disrupted and changed the game in the retail sector forever. Are there emerging technology trends now that have the potential to have the same impact on the housing sector? Adactus Housing thinks so. Join them for an entertaining and speculative look into the ‘world of tomorrow’ (Futurama joke).
AmicusHorizon: How to design mobile solutions to improve customer service and business efficiency
Speaker: Robert Stewart. Business Systems Manager
AmicusHorizon was shortlisted for the UK IT Industry Awards 2014. Its submission concerned its mobile working project. It focused on its financial inclusion solution and how it gave them the blueprint to build further apps. The presentation will cover: their agile-like methodology; how it carried the business with them; how to take an enterprise approach; the benefits; and demo examples.
Axonex: Connecting your tenants: providing community engagement and insight through the cloud
Speakers: To be confirmed
Axonex, Cisco Meraki & Purple WiFi demonstrate best practice in terms of scalable wi-fi, legal and security compliance and automatic content filtering. Learn about cloud managed wi-fi solutions with social media self-sign-on which generates user data such as age, gender and patterns of online usage allowing you to share information effectively and promote relevant news to users while encouraging tenants to engage in the community. Receive a free Meraki AP and Purple Wifi Cloud device licence.
BancTec & New Charter Housing: Building an award-winning, customer-driven CRM solution and realising the benefits
Speaker: Peter Dinham, Products Director
New Charter Housing has implemented a CRM solution which is used to provide a single view of its tenants and to manage its interactions with them. NCH is managing a multi-phase release of functionality. Such is the success of the programme that NCH won multiple awards at the 2014 NW Contact Centre Awards including Best Implementation of Technology.
Cairn Housing: Systems of execution: how Cairn delivers results through e-accountability
Speaker: Fin Smith, Head of Business Improvement
Are your staff clear on their priorities? Are you achieving the results you want? Is this all aligned to your strategy? If you answered ‘no’ or even ‘maybe’ to any of these then join our session to see how
Cairn Housing is using systems for strategy & performance management, customer service & engagement, and personal performance to articulate, deliver and achieve execution of our strategies.
Capita: Smarter property management: When the Internet of Things meets smart asset management
Speaker: Stewart Davison, Business Development Manager
Technology continues to move at an ever-greater pace and the Internet of Things (IoT) is here to stay. How best can you harness this to manage your assets in a smarter way and facilitate excellent customer service? Stewart Davison will answer this question and share results from recent research to uncover the impact of IoT and what this means for the UK’s social housing sector.
Castleton Technology (Documotive & Montal): Connecting everyone to everything
Speaker: Chris Lawrence, Technical Services Architect
In today’s world of increasing data & systems, the need to drive efficiencies and operate more effectively across a range of channels has never been greater. What changes will the emergence of IoT bring to your operational delivery models and how will you deal with an ever-increasing volume of noise? Find out about how Documotive and its customers are already embracing new technologies and the benefits these have given them.
Cisco: The future of tenant interaction
Speaker: Martin Wicks, Customer Experience Consultant
In today’s customer care environment, customers expect to get the service they require using their channel of choice. Those who prefer to interact using voice expect to get through to an agent with the expertise and knowledge to help them get the information they need on the first call. Other customers may want to interact with your customer service team through web chat, email, social media, or video. Customers may also choose self-service for efficiently processing routine requests. In all cases, customers expect the customer service representative to understand the priority of their engagement and to be sufficiently skilled in the required subject matter.
Civica: Social housing: The changing landscape of housing technology
Speaker: Mark Holdsworth, Business Development Director
As citizens begin to embrace digital technology in all aspects of their lives, so too must the organisations who deliver the services they require. Mobile technology and the demand for online self-service are having profound impacts on how we consume and deliver public services, and the increasing diversity of the social housing landscape is driving evolution in the sector. Mark Holdsworth will discuss how new technology can be exploited to deliver improved choices and services for tenants and increasing customer satisfaction at the same time as better organisational efficiency.
Community Housing Cymru Group: Getting social housing tenants online in Wales; overcoming skills, motivation and affordability barriers
Speaker: Hayley McNamara, Regeneration Officer
Provisional synopsis: This session will explore how housing associations are overcoming digital exclusion in Wales through projects that address skills and motivational barriers, and in particular, the affordability barrier. In the modern world, should access to decent and affordable levels of broadband for social housing tenants be a basic expectation from landlords? Why hasn’t the market come up with solutions? We will look at how housing associations are trying to overcome these issues to provide affordable broadband to tenants.
Golden Gates Housing Trust: Transforming front-line housing services through mobile technology
Speaker: Peter Fitzhenry, Director of Housing Management & ICT
Golden Gates Housing is working with Footprint Solutions on a mobile solution to get our staff closer to our tenants to improve neighbourhood management, reduce arrears, support tenants struggling with welfare reform and to make some financial savings as well! A tall order but initial results are good: voids down, arrears down, satisfaction up, ASB down and significant financial savings delivered. We’ve delivered a mobile solution in three months from concept to operation.
Helena Partnerships: CRM, mobile working and straight-through processing
Speakers: Louise Hodgson, CRM Strategy Manager and Dave Roberts, Service Development Manager
Over the past year, we have been developing a seamless case management system and fully integrating our mobile technology solution (Total Mobile) with our in house CRM system, to provide a streamlined single application STP approach for our frontline services to support our customers with extra needs. Knowledge management, efficient processes and integration!
Home Group: Automating outbound contact in the rent collection process
Speaker: Chris Roberts, Head of Customer Service Centre
Rent arrears management for 55,000 properties is a challenge that requires a process driven approach. After Housing Technology 2014 where Home Group saw the Call2Collect service from Housing Contact presented by Adactus, the project was given to Chris Roberts to implement this proven call automation into their overall rent collection process. Having first piloted and subsequently adopted the service, Chris presents the rationale and results of that decision.
Housing Contact Company: Can a commercial head be reconciled with a social heart?
Speakers: Barry Marlow, Partner, Get Real Partnership and Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting
Barry Marlow is a housing visionary, who works with the NHF to help bring social entrepreneurial ideas to the sector. Tony Smith blogs as ThatHousingITguy and specialises in helping organisations make these ideas a practical reality. Both grew up in social housing and are passionate about helping the sector move forward in these uncertain times. Like most people in the housing sector, Barry is not an IT wizard. He thinks there is too much data and sometimes too much technology. With Tony Smith, he will explore the challenge of change and how we should be going about working our technology and suppliers harder, turning our data into useful information. Romantics in social housing who dream of golden days of guaranteed income need to realise the realities of the new marketplace and that includes tenants and payday lenders. The customers’ world has moved on. How can our processes and systems enable us to think commercially and act socially in this new landscape?
Housing Partners: Working in an Agile environment with a cloud infrastructure
Speakers: Paul Creamer, Chief Technology Officer and Jenny McCulloch, Director of Product Innovation
The rate of change in technology is increasing rapidly within the housing sector. Housing Partners has responded to this change by introducing a new Agile development process in 2014 and integrated the cloud into the infrastructure. The transition included many challenges, our presentation will show the before and after and the experiences of the team during this process.
Midland Heart: Understanding the customer journey in the eyes of an industry ‘newbie’
Speaker: Marc Slack, Head of ICT
A presentation providing an insight into the first few months of entering the world of social housing. What are the challenges an IT function faces in how can we provide a digital journey for our staff and customers? Can we take inspiration from other sectors in considering omni-channel digital access?
Northgate Public Services: Challenges to the UK housing sector
Please note: click the link above to request a copy of the presentation direct from the speaker, for reasons of confidentiality.
Speaker: Glen Lewis, UK Housing Sector Manager
The global economic crisis, coupled with the shift from subsidised to self-financing models and the lack of supply of housing has seen fundamental change in the UK Housing eco-system. When we also consider that housing is intrinsically linked to almost every major area of government policy, we ask ‘What are housing organisations doing differently now and how do they address these challenges?’
Orbit: Housing goes digital – right kit … or right culture?
Speaker: Boris Worrall, Executive Director of Futures
As housing providers grapple with social media, the expectations of a growing cohort of ‘generation Y’ staff and a customer base increasingly used to banking and shopping online, how do we respond to the digital challenges of tomorrow? And is it more about the way we think, and less about having the latest technology?
Orchard Information Systems: What next for the key vendors in the housing sector?
Speaker: Aidan Dunphy, Head of Product Strategy
Orchard recently commissioned research involving interviews with a wide range of housing providers, pursuing specific lines of enquiry, but also offering an opportunity to give their views on solution provision in the sector. Topics included cloud, hosting, SaaS, procurement and an assessment of the main vendors. Orchard’s head of product strategy Aidan Dunphy will present findings from the research and how they could affect the position of key vendors.
Origin Housing: Digital personal development
Speakers: Mark Lordon, Assistant Director of IT & Office Services and Julie Humphreys, Head of Communications
How Origin took its digital strategy to a new level: find out how Origin procured and implemented a new content management system to drive the personalisation of content to enrich tenants’ digital experience rather than simply building a new website.
Peaks & Plains: Bringing services direct to your customers: Streamlining and digitising housing services
Speakers: Simon Penaluna, Assistant Director of IT and Neil Bancroft, Service Improvement Manager
Can repairs operatives be the new housing officers? Hear about the challenges and the solutions to get an entire workforce engaged in getting out of the office and delivering all the services they can on the doorstep of nearly 5000 homes across some of the most rural areas of the country.
RCT Homes: Multi-tasking while mobile working
Speaker: Alun Dowling, Head of ICT
Provisional synopsis: We are currently working on an exciting new development with a third party, taking a totally new view on mobile working. Instead of one task per operative, we have turned the whole process on its head. If someone is at one of our properties, the system will look for what work they can undertake, based on the skills they have. For example, repairs operative at a property to fix a leak may be asked to check on some ASB (e.g. fly tipping), capture or clarify some suspect data (DoB or phone number, etc). The system will also bring data together from multiple back-end systems, irrespective of the original supplier.
Red Kite Community Housing & Sovereign Business Integration Group: Portraying excellence and pride through innovation, creativity and wise investments
Speaker: Helen Anderson, Head of Innovation & Neil Venables, Resources Director
As a relatively young but ambitious housing association, Red Kite Community Housing has set out to deliver modern, seamless services in a typically traditional industry, by designing them with their customers. Having recently awarded their IT service contract to a new supplier, Red Kite talk about their exciting vision for the future and how their journey promises to challenge the norm and open up avenues that make the best use of new technologies.
Rooftop Housing Group: Pulling the plug on offline services (and how to do it)
Speaker: Barry Cooke, Communications Manager
How far are we prepared to go in pulling the plug on offline services? Do we wait for our tenants to catch up with technology? Do we encourage and entice them, or can we actually force them to access our services via the web? Rooftop now has 40 per cent of its households registered via our website to take advantage of our online services. Find out how we’ve managed to reach this figure and what we’re planning to do to double it in the next five years.
Severnside Housing: Targeted housing services investment using data
Speaker: Sue Groom, Neighbourhood & Community Services Director
Use of data allows customer insight, external and partner information to drive and inform our work with residents; communities and neighbourhoods. Using data in this way gives a greater understanding of communities and customer requirements by mapping and profiling. In this way, we support delivery; target resources and evidence outcomes. It can provide a driver for partnership working with health, education, police and others. We can demonstrate the difference we have made and return on investment.
SITS Group & Trident Social Investment Group: Your journey to the utopian private cloud
Speakers: Phil Cambers, Commercial Director, SITS Group and Manpreet Singh, ICT Manager, Trident Social Investment Group
Modern housing associations must be incredibly agile in order to meet the demands of running their businesses. Legislation changes, ways of working change, expectation around system availability and uptime has never been higher and IT has to be there ready to react almost 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Join SITS Group and learn how they can help make your IT infrastructure meet and exceed these expectations. Also you will hear from one of recent client success stories; Trident Social Investment Group with whom we’ve helped make their own client owned cloud infrastructure as high performant and agile as possible.
Solihull Community Housing: A commercial approach to social housing
Speaker: Chris Deery, Head of ICT
This eclectic presentation will look at the issues around helping tenants by sharing payment data and the Rental Exchange project. The presentation will also look at the risks and opportunities of developing a more commercial approach to housing and how any profits generated can be used to support the wider community. For example the practical and political issues around selling a repairs service to staff and members of the general public. Finally the presentation will touch on the barriers to increasing the use of online services.
Southern Housing Group: Social housing 2.0
Speaker: Kevin Connell, IT Director
We are in a time of radical change for social housing, characterised by innovative responses from some social landlords. As budget pressures grow, the need for landlords to maximise efficiency continues and opportunities exist to contemplate a more fundamental rethink of the ways to do business – the same applies to IT departments. This presentation sets out some of the opportunities and the need for new ways of thinking.
Thames Valley Housing Association: Delivering services digitally
Speaker: Jayne Hilditch, Corporate Services Director
Our vision for the future of customer service delivery is ‘digital by design’ (rather than default). And we’ve built a web platform to do just that; we call it MyTVH. It’s a fully responsive design, so works well on smartphones, and covers all of the core transactional landlord services. We’d love to share our experiences: how we built it, what’s worked, and what hasn’t.
Trafford Housing Trust: IT projects vs. business improvement: Moving from legacy to 21st century HMS
Speakers: Alyson Heald, Service Improver – Business Intelligence and Louise Cope, Head of ICT
Trafford Housing Trust successfully implemented an integrated housing system in approximately nine months, replacing four legacy systems in one big-bang project, realising significant business benefits. This was followed by review of system utilisation and a plan to further develop functionality with a focus on moving the culture from IT-led implementations to business-led improvement projects. The discussion will cover learning from the initial project and how they were addressed for future working.
Trident Social Investment Group: Digital inclusion: Leaving no one behind
Speakers: Ed Reed, Head of ICT and Philip Bowen, Digital Inclusion Coordinator
An overview of Trident’s approach to engaging and supporting vulnerable people in the digital age, while building the infrastructure for future communications and business efficiency. It covers moving from strategy to implementation, plus infrastructure, support and training as vital elements to a successful programme of change.
Viridian Housing: Digital innovation at Viridian Housing
Speaker: Ed Wallace, Research and Innovation Manager
Viridian Housing has been working hard to develop and test a range of digital solutions that will help it address some of the challenges facing its tenants and the organisation. Ed Wallace will talk about a number of examples ranging from practical projects, such as their award-winning digital inclusion service, an affordability assessment tool that ensures all new tenancies are set up to succeed, and a data hub that is being developed to help front-line staff work more effectively with tenants in the community. He will also talk about their new app MoveMaker, which was recently selected as one of three finalists in Nesta and the Open Data Institute’s Housing Open Data Challenge. The app uses functionality from popular dating apps to make it really, really easy for social housing tenants to swap their home.
Wakefield & District Housing: Creating the ‘connected estate’
Speaker: Geoff Kirk, Service Director for Business Systems
Hear how WDH is wirelessly connecting our 12 offices, 45 independent living schemes and 31,000 homes. This network will provide better, cheaper business connectivity, give our 450 mobile workers direct access to corporate systems and data, and offer free internet access for all tenants. Working with our key IT suppliers, we’re now exploring how to create our own Internet of Things to transform how WDH does business.
Wales & West Housing: Building a new housing management system from scratch
Speaker: Richard Troote, Head of ICT
The housing sector, like many others, is faced with rapid and constant change. Increasingly housing associations are finding their traditional HMS systems don’t provide them with the flexible and adaptable platform needed. This presentation provides a case study of meeting that challenge head on, by working in an Agile way to deliver an evolving, flexible and device-neutral system to the business demands.
Wheatley Group: Connecting the unconnected
Speaker: Graeme Hamilton, Innovation and Online Services Manager
Wheatley Group has been piloting the use of digital connectivity in a high-rise block in an effort to help tenants break through the barrier of digital exclusion. Drawing on the experience of the past 12 months, Graeme will explore the lessons learned, the potential for an effective business case and the drive by group staff and customers to put online services at the heart of future customer experience.
WM Housing: The journey to IT and housing excellence
Speaker: Angus Groom, Director of Corporate Services
WM Housing Group’s ‘Journey to Excellence’ programme, first covered in 2012, sets out to radically overhaul our housing systems and at the same time change our culture to provide ever more focus on our customers. A story heard a thousand times? Well, probably, but for us this means tackling the culture, processes and systems of four previously independent organisations each serving a different group of customers. Hear about how we have brought these disparate parts together under a single vision which makes a leap forward in using technology and defining a new culture to achieve a fundamental shift in attitude and working practises.
