Housing providers are going to have a lot on their plates over the next 2-5 years and beyond. Whether you’re worrying about universal credit, rent reductions, pay-to-stay, right-to-buy, mergers and acquisitions, or the wider economy (or all of them), any of these has the potential to be either a disaster waiting to happen or an opportunity for growth.
Although those possible worries are varied, what they have in common is that technology lies at the heart of each of them, not only as a basic enabler but also as a very important differentiator. Those who flourish and those who fall behind will be distinguished by how they’ve chosen to make technology central (or not) to what they do and how they manage their businesses.
We’ve written in the past about how technology in social housing has gone from being a basic service to now being a successful enabler for operational change. However, we’ve now reached the next ‘tipping point’, where technology, and IT departments, should be proactively leading operational change and better business performance.
In short, a change from, ‘yes, we can do that for you’ to, ‘here’s how we’re going to do it’.
