 |
I was down in Paddington just the other week in one of my favourite boozers, The Victoria. Not part of a pub quiz team, but I was helping some lads from Brighton with the questions from north of Watford. It was the best I could do.
This included, which Scottish Whisky has a name meaning “The Valley of the Deer”? (Glenfiddich - Gaelic “Gleann Fhiodhaich”), highest mountain in England which stumped many (Scafell Pike at 978 m, just over the height of of a Scottish Corbett) and finally, what is the common name for the “Gravelly Hill Interchange”? (Easy one for anyone from the NW of England who has wasted days of their life on it, “Spaghetti Junction”).
One question that stumped me and the whole pub, was what did the “B” represent in B&Q ?
The answer, if you need it for your next pub quiz is “Block”, after original founders “Richard Block and David Quayle”, from 1969.
If you have ever visited B&Q you will no doubt have encountered one of their excellent team of enabled pensioners with lots of practical building experience, who can guide you to section 6 for that copper plumbing joint, or rack 18a for that heavy duty shed hasp and staple. An amazing number of retired folk have decades of experience that are being cleverly leveraged by B&Q, that's valuable knowledge too.
The same principle has been provided by Help Me Fix since 2022. It’s a clever service with great feedback satisfaction reports. A lot of data could be built up from 500 or so repair reports weekly, as well as supplied images. If that was 50,000+ or so examples, that was always clear after the advent of modern AI, that could only be a suitable learning database for a language model. Effectively, it was obvious that much of that experience could be encapsulated into AI, to reduce the costs of having staff in the process, based on that many use-cases. So possibly, that’s more potential staff for B&Q, as well as a leaner business.
My money would have been on Plentific buying up Help me Fix, however this month Aareon serial snapper upper have snapped them up. See Homemaster & ActiveH blogs....
This makes some commercial sense as some of Aareon's Fixflo product has had integrations since October 2024 and clearly proved its worth. The AI developed has been named Aidenn and looks to have initial capability to interpret uploaded images and cross-reference to supplied text or spoken details. Most likely “Aidenn” might be Aareon’s future AI anchoring. It will be to be seen if this has realistic Agentic AI capabilities that can operate beyond this tightly constrained use case.
A lovely substantial payday then for Ettan Bazil, nice juicy return for just over 3 years work, get that Sunseeker ordered and the condo plans prepared in Sandbanks. There is no indication of what this has cost Aareon, who posted a £10m+ loss last financial year. Hopefully some German’s in Mainz have done the mathematic on this. Perhaps the next financial postings will reveal the cost of this, Homemaster and ActiveH and also of course the positive effects on the bottom line. Lack of turning a dollar (or a Euro perhaps in Aareon UK’s EU parent context) puts organisations at risk of takeover, being the smallest of the UK remaining big four.
In the UK public sector, organisations value great products, acceptable service, stability, low risk and value pricing. As choice in the UK continues to narrow, it will be interesting how existing customers and new ones coming to market, react to these new developments.
Some chapter & verse here
Related Post: Repairs - how can landlords do it way better?
I would be pleased to connect with you on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy Message
me with any issues or queries, you would like to be explored in this
blog. We generally receive a couple of suggestions each month.
Garbage - Fix Me Now
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009
Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here
Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems and help with your organisation issues.
File
Under:
#HomesForBritain,#HousingDAY,#InternetOfTenants,#Shout,#UKHousing,
07854655009, 1st Touch,1stTouch,360,365Agile,3squared,4Js,
ACL,ALMO,AMS,AX,Aareon,Abritas,Academy,Accuserv,Accuserve,Active
Housing,ActiveH,ActiveF,ActiveFinance,ActiveHousing,Acutence,Advanced,Aidenn,Affinity,Agile,Agile365,AHB,AirWatch,Alscient,Alfresco,Alignment,Allpay,Amazon
Web Services,Anite,Apex,App,ArchHouse,Archouse,Asprey e-state pro,Asset
Management,Associates,Aurora,Average IT Costs,AWI SX Integration
Toolkit,AWS,
BI,BO,BPR,BancTec,BigChange,Blockwise,BluTek,Bluebox,Blueprint,BrikHousing,Browser
Applications,BC, Business Central, Business Objects,Business
Planning,Business Process Review,Business social networking, CACI,Capita
One Housing,CBL,CCS IT Keystone
CCSIT,CEDRM,CHICS,CHR,CIH,CMS,COA,CORE,CPL,CRM,CRM2013,CRS,CTI,CTX,Cadcorp,Capita,CapitaOne,Capita
One,Capital Management,Cashflow,Castle,Castleton,Castleton
Technology,Cedar Open Accounts,Cerrus,Change,Charges,Chartered Institute
Of Housing,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics, Citrix,Civica,Civica CTX,Civica
Cx,Civica Genero,Civica Saffron,Clearview,Clik,Cx Assets, Cloud
Dialogs,CloudDialogs,Coactiva,Codeman,Comino,Commontime,Community Reward
Services,Company,Competitive Dialogue process,Component
Accounting,Consilium,Consolidation,
Consultancy,Consultant,Consultants,Contact Manager,Context,Contractor
Systems,CorVu,Cost Reductions,Covalent,Crystal Reports,Customer
Relationship Management,Cx,CxFeedback, DRS,Deeplake,Designer
Software,Development
Systems,Director,Document,Documotive,Docuware,Dynamic
AI,DynamicAI,Dynamics 365,D365,Dynamics365,Dynaway
ECMK,EDM,EDRMS,ERP,ESRI,Elmhurst,Enghouse
Interactive,England,English,EnterpriseBI,Estatecraft,Esuasive,Esynergy,Etive,Exhibition,Exponential-e,
F&O, Facebook,Factorwise,Field Service management,Finance,Financial
Systems,Financials,FLS,Footprint,Forms,Freezes,Fusion,Fuzzlab Gas
Tag,G-Cloud,GCloud,GDPR,GGP,GIS,GasTag,Genero,GeoSolveIT,Getting best
from,GoTonySmith,Grasp,Grip,Group Apex, HCL,HFI (Housing Financials
interface),HG,HRA,Hardware,Hitachi
Systems,Hitex,HomeMaster,Hometeam,HouSys,House,Housemark,Housemark
survey,Housing,Housing Contact,Housing Group,Housing Insight,Housing
Management,Housing Management Consultant,Housing Partners,Housing
Portfolio Management System,Hub Asset Management,Homeswapper,Housing
jigsaw,HousingOne,Housing-One, Housing Support
Pro,HousingIT,HousingSupportPro,HyperOptic, IMS,IPC,iProperty
Cloud,IT,IT Budget,IT Training,ITIL,Impact Response,In,In4,In4Systems
Promaster,InfinityGroup,InfoBoss,InHouse,InMotion,InMotion2015,InMotion2016,InfoBoss,Infoflow,Information,Information
Technology,Information@Work components,Informix,Innovation,
Informetis,Inphase,Inside Housing,Insight,Internet
Portal,Internetalia,Invu,Ireland,Irish,itLab,InclineIT,
Keyfax,Keylogic,Keypera,Keystone,Kirona,Kypera,Keynamics,
Landlord,Ledgers,Linkedin,Liquid,Locality,Localz,
M3,MadeTech,MAVIS,MD,MDM,MI,MIS,MIS-AMS,MISCS,MRI,MS Dynamics,MRI,MS
Dynamics CRM2011,Microsoft365,microsoft 365,MWL,Management,Management
Server,Manifest,Measuring,Mebus,More IQ,MoreIQ,Microsoft Dynamics
365,Microsoft dynamics GP 2013,Miracle,MobileIron,Mobysoft,Monopoly
board images and pictures,Montal,Mr Void,MriEngage,MrVoid,MoreIQ,
MRI,MRI Housing One, NDL,NINTEX,NINTEX workflow,NPS,NPS ASSIST,NPS
Housing,NPS Job Manager Mobile,NROSH,Natural,Neighbourhoods and
Communities,Nintexworkflow,Northgate,Northgate Codeman,Northgate Public
Services,Notice, OA,OGC Buying Solutions,OJEU
Limits,ORS,Ohms,OmFax,Omniledger,One,OneAdvanced,OneServe,Open
source,OpenContractor,OpenHousing,Opti-time,Options,Optitime,Oracle,Orchard,Outsource
and outsourcing,OutSystems, PIMMS,PIMSS
Data,PM,PRINCE2,Paloma,Pamwin,PanConnect,People
Value,Peoplevalue,PfH,Pick,PlanForm,Planned
maintenance,Plentific,Plus,Portfolio Management
System,PowerObjects,Pro,Pro-Points,Prodo,Progress,Promaster,Propeller,Propoints,Proval,Providers,Pyramid,
QL,QLX, QLF, QL Yuneo,QuantSpark,Qube,QLX,Qlikview,QueryView,Queryview
reporting,Quiss, RM865,ROCC,RPs,RSL,Rave,ReAct,Reality,RedkiteCRM,Red
Olive,Registered,Registered Social,Rent
Increase,RentSense,RentSenseLite,Repairfinder,Reporting,Reports,RobotAutomation,Rocket,Rubixx,
Salesforce,Salesforce.Org,SAP,SASSHA,SDM,SHBVN,SM,SOTI,SP,SQL,SQL Open
Housing,SQL Reporting,SQL
Server,Saffron,Safron,Saturn,Scenario,Scotland,Scots,Scottish,Scout,Sequoa,Serengeti,Serros,Server,Service,Services,Servitor,Sharepoint,Sim,SimPro,
Simdel,Simdell,Slash and Burn,Social Housing ICT,Social Housing
Software Applications,Social Media,Software,Software solutions,Spotlight
Service,Spotlightservice,Star rating,Stores and
Stock,Strategic,SunAccounts,Sunguard,Surveys,Streetwise,
Swordfish,Sx3,Symatrix Human,System alignment,Systems,Systemwise,
T-Files,TEAMS,TED,TFiles,TP Tracker,TSG,Tagish
Casework,Tagra,Task,TAIM,Techlabs,Technologies (India) PVT
Limited,Telecetera,Template,Terminal Services,That,Three
Star,Tilt,TiltAffinity,Today,Tony Smith,Tony Smith That Housing IT
Guy,TonySmith that housing IT,TonySmithHou,TonySmithHousing,
,TonySmithHousingITguy,Total,Total
Mobile,Totalmobile,Trace,Tribal,Twitter, U2,UC,UK,UK
Housing,Ukhousing,UniClass Enterprise,Unidata,United
Kingdom,Universal,Universalcredit,Universe,Unrest, Valueworks,Van
Stock,Vantage,Vantage
Sentinel,Version,Virtualisation,Visitour,Visualmetrics,Voice,Voice and
data,Voicescape,Voluntas, Wales,Welsh,Wheatley,Windows Server,Workflow
and,Work Hub,Works Connect, XML,Xen App,XenApp,Xmbrace, Yuneo,TS
Acutance Consulting, ...
No comments:
Post a Comment