Mining value from your existing data
After 25 years in the social housing sector, the feedback I hear from teams using various systems in their day-to-day work is rarely positive. Their comments generally include ‘slow’, ‘difficult’, ‘cumbersome to use’, ‘awful’ and ‘not fit for purpose’.
While it may be tempting to blame the original developers of these systems, housing providers are where they are because of their purchasing decisions and how these systems have then been implemented, maintained, developed and used by their staff.
Technological advances have generated excitement for the most part, yet this is conspicuously absent in housing systems. But why?
Many organisations mistakenly view the presence of a system as the end goal. Software creators and system designers recognise that systems are tools, not destinations. Effective systems hinge on the management of data, and this reminded me of a story I read years ago.
The quest for perfection
In ‘The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia’, written in 1759 by Samuel Johnson, Prince Rasselas and his companions embark on a quest to find the secret to a fulfilling life, leaving the restrictive ‘Happy Valley’ of Abyssinia. Their journey reveals various flawed models of happiness, such as wealth, power, solitude and pleasure, but none provides genuine fulfilment. The story concludes without resolution, emphasising that perfect contentment is unattainable on earth and can only be found through faith and acceptance of life’s imperfections.
Prince Rasselas can teach housing providers a crucial lesson. There is no perfect system so instead your focus should be on improving your data management because poor data is often the source of many problems within an organisation. Ultimately, delivering better services starts with a clearer understanding of your data.
DAMA International’s president, Dr. Peter Aiken, with 35 years of experience in data management, draws some valuable conclusions from his work:
- 80 per cent of organisational data is redundant, obsolete or trivial.
- Successful data management relies on a balance of people, processes and technology, yet many organisations place disproportionate emphasis on technology alone.
- Surveys cited by Aiken reported that 80 per cent of data-related challenges stem from people and process problems, not technology.
- Low data literacy results in workers lacking the confidence to use data effectively, with many business decision-makers sharing this lack of confidence. Nearly half of workers and many executives still rely on intuition rather than data-driven decision-making, creating a significant barrier to effective data use.
- Many employees seek alternative methods for completing data-related tasks, often creating ‘out of core system’ datasets, which reduce overall productivity and make the management of data more complex.
The Aiken’s central theme is that data governance and management should be prioritised over technological fixes.
You’re going to need a bigger boat…
When I joined Ark Consultancy four years ago, I was asked by one of our directors how effective I thought the sector was at data management and using business intelligence. I used Steven Spielberg’s film ‘Jaws’ to explain my answer, arguing that teams generally comprise two types of people.
There are people like Quint, the aged shark hunter, who have “been there and done it”. Their experience is communicated via anecdote and story, and they tend to rely on gut feel. Then there are people like Hooper, the oceanographer, who are inquisitive, ask questions and are more comfortable with collaboration.
However, it is the leaders (Brody) of these teams who determine which approach is favoured. Invariably, this is determined by whether the leader is primarily a Quint or a Hooper themself. The risk is that organisations can be data-rich, intelligence-poor and process- rather than outcome-orientated.
Kate Dodsworth, deputy chief executive, Regulator for Social Housing (RSH), recently said, “Poor data is often a key cause of weakening landlords’ performance. It is impossible for governing bodies and executive teams to assess their current position, let alone make decisions and plan for the future, if they don’t have robust, accurate data to understand their homes, tenants or financial position properly.”
Similarly, the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government’s 2024 report, ‘Technology for Housing Services’, found that some housing providers struggle “to get an overarching view of what is going on, understand patterns, make predictions and make decisions for strategic service delivery, affecting their ability to be responsive and customer centred… …a lack of strategic analysis causes inefficiencies: urgent requests take precedence over preventative ones and there is limited long-term planning.”
Collected but dispersed
In our experience, organisations are pretty good at collecting data but it is often then held in different systems. Effective data management can be more challenging because of an inherent belief that the system should do it. However, data needs to be reviewed, audited and cleansed. For data to be useful, it needs to be actively managed.
Aligning key strategic risks with data at the planning stage enables organisations to make the right decisions at the right time. Maintaining safety, decency and improving energy efficiency often requires the data in these systems to be combined, so comprehensive and coherent plans can be formulated. Some organisations struggle to do this because combining data from different systems into a single source can be tricky.
More value from data
ARK has an established track record in helping clients get more value from their data. ARK’s strategic asset performance (ASAP) model helps housing providers understand how their assets are performing, and our 30AMP is a data model that combines a client’s asset data so they can visualise it better and then develop more coherent and robust investment plans. If you think your organisation could benefit from talking to ARK about getting more value from your data, then please get in touch.
Adam Borrie is an assistant director at Ark Consultancy.
