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There is a chippy not far from me. Nice place. Dearer than your average Friday night grease station, but fair play, the food is properly good. It has just come second in the North West Chippy Awards. Well done to them too, because if the fish is decent, the chips are right, and the queue keeps coming back, that is not luck. That is somebody doing the basics properly, day after day.
But it did get me thinking. We seem to have awards for absolutely everything now. Best chippy. Best pie. Best hospitality team. Best digital transformation. Best innovation. Best customer journey. Best procurement. Best use of AI. Best critical friend. Best use of coloured sticky notes in a workshop, probably. Give it another ten minutes and there will be an award for Best Award Submission Written About Another Award Submission.
Social housing is no different. In fact, if anything, it can be a little worse. Have a dig around and you find a small mountain of them. Housing Innovation Awards. Digital Innovation Awards. Housing Technology Awards. Then plenty more besides, once you start lifting the lid. There are awards for landlords, awards for suppliers, awards for projects, awards for leadership, best customer service, awards for teams, best kept data awards, awards for resident engagement, and no doubt awards for turning up in a smart jacket and smiling next to a branded backdrop with a glass of warm fizzy white wine.
Now let us be honest as numerous jobbing suppliers have often told me, because somebody has to be. Some of these awards are fair enough. Some will have decent judging, sensible evidence, and proper scrutiny behind them. Some winners will absolutely deserve the recognition. But equally, there is a fair question to ask. If you buy a table or two or more, put together a slick entry, wheel out a bit of polished marketing fluff, and get your people scrubbed up and into the room, are you suddenly in with a better shout? And if you buy three tables, is that even better? Does the trophy go to the best solution, or the best-presented evening out?
That might sound cynical, but only because plenty of people in this sector have seen how the game works. Awards can easily become part celebration, part marketing exercise, part sales tactic. There is nothing illegal or shocking about that. It is just real life. The problem starts when people begin treating awards as if they are proof. They are not. At best, they are a clue. At worst, they are shiny nonsense in a glass cabinet. A little vulgar to many in a sector increasingly squeezed and needing to give more to residents. Lets not lose sight of them.
A supplier having an award does not automatically mean their product is right for your organisation. It does not mean the implementation went well. It does not mean the reporting works. It does not mean the users like it. It does not mean the data migrated cleanly. It does not mean the repairs team are happier, the finance team are quicker, or the housing officers are no longer swearing at the screen by half nine on a Monday morning.
And that is the bit that matters.
In social housing especially, too many buying decisions still get nudged along by noise. A strong brand. A glossy stand. A confident sales team. A case study that sounds a bit too perfect. A 12 month implementation that actually took four years from contract signing. An award logo dropped into the slide deck as if it settles the argument. It does not. Contracting bodies should not be choosing solutions just because somebody won something in a hotel ballroom. They should be matching their own needs to what a solution can actually be proved to provide.
That means proper evidence. Prescriptive demo’s. Asking all the right questions. Real reference sites. Clear fit to requirements. Strong data migration thinking. Reporting that works in the real world, not just in a scripted demo. Customers who have stayed the course and still speak well of the product after the confetti has been swept up. Not just who bought it, but who kept it. That last bit matters more than suppliers like to admit.
Because in the end, whether it is a chippy or a housing system, you cannot beat pure graft. You cannot beat a great product, nor service consistency. You cannot beat customers who come back because they want to, not because they are trapped, too tired to move, or halfway through a ten-year contract.
That chippy near me probably did not come second because of a clever awards strategy alone. It likely came second because enough people rate the food (including me), the standards, and the experience. Fair play. But in social housing technology, the stakes are a lot higher than who gets the nicest plaque and a few LinkedIn likes the next morning.
So yes, enjoy the awards night. Clap for the winners. Put the photo on the website. But do not confuse trophies with truth. In this sector, the real prize is not a shiny logo for the footer of a bid document. It is delivering something that works, keeps working, and keeps customers satisfied.
Everything else is just batter my friend 😉
Related Post: Maybe the right Critical Friend, is what you need.
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.
Kirsty MacColl - There's a guy works down the chip shop, swears he's Elvis
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009
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