Notting Hill Genesis and Peabody have jointly appointed Plentific to deliver an innovative dynamic purchasing system and digital marketplace for repairs and maintenance.
Plentific’s online portal is intended to provide a complete work-order and supply-chain management system across all job sizes, based around a pool of locally sourced, pre-vetted repairs and maintenance operatives.
The two housing providers have already completed a trial of around 44,000 jobs by 500 contractors, with overall satisfaction levels of almost 90 per cent. Notting Hill Genesis and Peabody completed over 10,000 jobs during lockdown using the system, with an average seven-day turnaround of jobs.
Plentific’s solution will be available to all housing providers, local authorities and ALMOs from September 2020. Access to the DPS Marketplace for both housing providers and contractors is free and no additional OJEU compliance is needed.
Ashling Fox, chief operating officer, Peabody, said, “The idea is to provide choice and control to tenants, enabling them to rate and select contractors themselves using the Plentific platform. Self-employed, skilled residents can bid for work themselves, and we’ve already seen hundreds of local tradespeople and businesses delivering responsive repairs in and around our homes.
“The system has already enabled us to carry out thousands of jobs during lockdown to a high standard and we think this will be an excellent part of the mix in delivering modern, high quality repairs services quickly and efficiently.”
Initial use of the marketplace will extend to the 100,000 properties in the London and Essex regions covered by Peabody and Notting Hill Genesis.
Elly Hoult, group director of assets, Notting Hill Genesis, said, “The digital marketplace is the cornerstone of our pledge to improve our repairs service and provide better opportunities for residents to self-serve. This will give them greater choice and control over who carries out work on their home and when that happens, as well as supporting the economy by helping smaller and independent contractors work with us to deliver better local services.”
Plentific will be responsible for the digital marketplace, from vetting new contractors to issuing responsive repair tasks and voids work through to monitoring and reporting operational KPIs.
Cem Savas, CEO and co-founder, Plentific, said, “Our expertise in ‘proptech’ underpins the dynamic DPS Marketplace. The trials with Peabody and Notting Hill Genesis have shown that our system brings substantial benefits. It can dramatically improve customer satisfaction levels, speed up repairs, lower costs for clients, and help support small- and medium-sized businesses.”
