International Dateline

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy
or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

This week I was working with a social housing landlord client at the tail end of a procurement, where we are down to a couple of possible suppliers and software products.

One of the most important parts of a procurement that I find is generally glossed over, is the reference site follow-up. That probably warrants a whole future blog of its own to be honest, as it can be so crucial in flagging up future issues that may need mitigating in your project delivery.

No doubt about it, who suppliers chose for your procurement says much about how their user base feels and functions in relationships with them. Large suppliers with only the same couple of reference sites definitely should flag up questions, as should why much nearer apparent sites have not been put forward.

In this case, both options had plenty of sites to choose from and spookily the product was sold in many countries and regions around the world. Now I have sat through demos where many familiar suppliers have put that initial slide up to say they have 20,000 people working for them and they have sites all over the place. The claim was generally true, but the reality sometimes is that out of that number, it might just be two men, a lady and a dog, based in some outpost like Cumbernauld employed by them, who actually will be your go-to support.   

They might be a very good three person team, but might not be adequate to support a product, over sold to dozens of unwary punters. Inevitably they would be a bottleneck to getting anything done or anything done or fixed quickly. Much like a single point of failure inside a housing organisation, management need to recognise and mitigate it quickly for everyone’s benefit.

These two references were really positive, although one of the people I am working with on the project mentioned something that really surprised them and it made one really stand out for him. The reference site had mentioned that on a number of occasions that help desk tickets had been picked up and resolved for them well out of normal hours, even though contracted support was a working 09:00-17:00. We are all used to logging help desk calls via self-service these days and probably phoning in those emergency (everything down) P1 calls.

The difference was with one supplier, was that a single worldwide helpdesk was being utilised for the product. When the Europe team clocked off, the US team in CA kicked in, Australia next, then the India team. You get the picture. Clearly too, a worldwide helpdesk meant a massive knowledge base supported the help desk staff, it wasn’t just in one persons head. Even though that sort of service wasn’t contracted, it was often delivered.

With a some of our ‘usual suspects’ suppliers now being amalgamated into bigger groups and claiming to have customers across three or more continents using the same products we use here in UK & Ireland, how many will have the ambition to evolve to be more joined up? Is that something your organisation could benefit from, rather than your helpdesk calls often falling out of your contract SLA’s?

Do have it in your mind when that slide of reassurance comes up at the start of your demo, to ask, “Where is your helpdesk located for this solution being offered and are you open enough to share your unvarnished current SLA stats for it”?

Related Post: Thinking about your procurements, are you asking the right questions?

Catch the blog monthly archive at https://soundcloud.com/housingitguy/

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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.

Ladytron – International Dateline.
(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.

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. . . . . . . . . . . .

SAP does not sell Sanctuary

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy
or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy




It's not often that implementation of a new housing system is cited in reasons for not doing a mega-merger, but that's what I noticed in the following article about Sanctuary and Housing 21



The article mentioned the following snippet:

I have heard the phrase "No one ever got fired for choosing SAP", very few people hang around long enough traditionally to see it go live. Clearly there is some way to go for the Real Estate Management module, to unseat Northgate PS Housing, at Sanctuary. With what might have already been spent on it, plus future spend clearly Housing21 must have considered better uses for that investment. I.E. Lots more supported housing. I have procured many systems for large groups, for way less than a couple of £m.

I see many of my LinkedIn contacts have moved on quite a lot with their SAP skills, over the past three years, from Social Housing clearly into areas that pay much better, since the original award . A skilled ICT team with SAP ABAP and other skills, is an expensive one, and difficult to keep, feed and water. Skilled SAP people who can endure 45 degree heat in the middle east, can earn up to £2,500 per day tax free. The alternative being a potentially expensive contract to completely support the implementation, from a large expert provider. 

Many public sector & government contracts have turned into proverbial poker games in the past. It feels easier chucking more money into the pot, rather than doing maybe the more sensible thing, of walking away from the table before the losses are too apparent.

Back getting on for 4 years ago, I chaired a session at a conference on the subject, "Is the traditional Housing Management System dead?". We explored the staleness and difficulty in implementing traditional systems and the hope that SAP and Dynamics CRM seemed to offer, to two of their users.At the time, SAP was touted as being big in the Netherlands social housing systems arena, after deregulation there. Vestia one of the biggest providers in Holland have had mixed fortunes, more recently.

Well it all seems to look a bit different looking back, hind-sight being a fabulous thing. Many of the old 'favourites' seem to have been improving what they do and still winning new HMS procurement's, particularly in larger RSL groups. There's been some thinking out of the box and a few more alliances & consolidations struck. Reasonable deals are available, if not rock bottom bargains in my experience.

Even in Holland which was held up as a stronghold of SAP in socialhousing, I have heard stories that there, many organisations are turning back to traditional vertical market housing applications. Certainly, now that budget belts are tightening in the UK, perhaps choosing SAP for housing data management was maybe not the best decision in hindsight, particularly if it's affecting mergers now too. 

Catch the blog monthly archive at https://archive.org/details/@housingitguy

Related Post: How smart exactly, is your Gas servicing?? 

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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.


The Cult - She Sells Sanctuary.
(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: 360,1stTouch,4Js. , 07854655009 ,365Agile," """" ",,#UKHousing,#HousingDAY, #HomesForBritain,#InternetOfTenants, #Shout,1st Touch,3squared,Accuserv,Acutence,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,AirWatch,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos, Asprey e-state pro,ActiveHousing,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,App,Associates,ACL,Abritas,AMS,AX,aspireview,Agile365, BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Planning, Business Process Review,Business social networking, Blockwise, Block wise,BI,BancTec,BluTek,Bluebox, Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Cx,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics, CHR,Citrix,Civica,Clearview,CMS , CCS IT Keystone CCSIT,Civica Genero,Contractor Systems,CORE,CorVu,Cost Reductions,Covalent,CRM,Crystal Reports,CTI,CTX,Customer Relationship Management,Cashflow, COA,Coactiva,Codeman,Comino,Competitive Dialogue process,complex IT procurements,Component Accounting, Community Reward Services, Consilium, Consolidation, Consultancy,Consultant,Contact 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We Have a Technical Helpdesk

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK
or LinkedIn here uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/




Have you ever worked on a technical support desk? You will have certainly had to deal with or log calls on one at some stage, I am sure. They can be very irritating to work with and it's got to be said, dealing with it from the other side of the fence, as irritating too.

I have worked on a couple of helpdesks at two different software organisations, so I have been around the block on this one. You experience people meddling with data, doing unauthorised raw updates, breaking stuff and also find some of the most obvious bugs, that you would have expected any half decent QA or system testing would have revealed.

On the former, often users are not aware of their contract which pretty comprehensively will forbade them doing those raw updates. That's not suppliers being peevish, its protection for them and the client. If you scramble your data making it corrupt or unloadable in the application, your contract does not support it. Consequently, a charge will be certainly quoted to sort it out.

Equally, if your users do something slightly crazy, like run the annual/quarterly leaseholder debit twice, that's not technical support either and its unlikely that your software supplier will clean up all the transactions, from your accounts for free. Maybe for something like that, reach for last nights' system backup, restore and lose some up-time. It all depends on the severity of the mistake. Perhaps getting admin to manually reverse out (or mitigate the) changes, is the best way.

One example recently I heard about was a large RSL accidently raising 1,200 gas service works orders, when they were not required. The housing system had not error-ed, it had done exactly as designed & instructed.  It was far cheaper to have an admin resource chew through them all to cancel, than ask the system supplier to automate a one off fix to do the same task.  it is often costly for the supplier to bespoke something like this, as one cancellation may impact eight or more tables and other related contextual updates.

All types of things can be done to make systems more foolproof, however in my experience, fools can be pretty damned ingenious!

If you have never worked on a technical support helpdesk, here's a useful snapshot, in the event your system supplier offers you a job on one. Something I am told that can happen a lot in the social housing system sector. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG7hYnMyxyY 

Related Post: What sort of waste do you generate & tolorate inside your organisation?

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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.


Gary Numan - We Have A Technical.
(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: 360,1stTouch,4Js. , 07854655009 , ," """" ",,#UKHousing,#HousingDAY, #HomesForBritain, #Shout,1st Touch,3squared,Accuserv,Acutence,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,App,Associates,ACL,Abritas,AMS,AX,aspireview, BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Planning, Business Process Review,Business social networking, Blockwise, Block wise,BI,BancTec,BluTek,Bluebox, Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Cx,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics, CHR,Citrix,Civica,Clearview,CMS , CCS IT Keystone CCSIT, Contractor Systems,CORE,CorVu,Cost Reductions,Covalent,CRM,Crystal Reports,CTI,CTX,Customer Relationship Management,Cashflow, COA,Coactiva,Codeman,Comino,Competitive Dialogue process,complex IT procurements,Component Accounting, Community Reward Services, Consilium, Consolidation, Consultancy,Consultant,Contact Manager,Context,CIH,Chartered Institute Of Housing,Cadcorp,Cerrus Saturn,convergeOne,CACI,CPL, CRS Director, Deeplake,Development Systems,Accuserve,Document Management,Documotive,datasystems , Microsoft dynamics GP 2013, DynamicAI, Dynamic AI, ECMK,EDRMS,England, English,EnterpriseBI,ERP Systems,ERP,Elmhurst,Estatecraft,EDM,ESRI,Exponential-e, Finance, Financial Systems, Financials, Factorwise,Facebook ,Footprint,Fusion, Getting best from,gotonysmith, Grasp,Grip,GeoSolveIT,GIS,GGP, HouSys,Housing software,HG,Housemark survey,Housing Blueprint,Housemark, HRA, Housing Options, Housing Group,hotpixuk, HousingIT,hotpix,Hardware,Hitex,Housing Contact Company, Impact Response,implementations,In House,In4,InMotion, InMotion2014, InMotion2015, InMotion2016 , Exhibition, conference, Infoflow,Information Technology,Informix,inHouse,in-house workforce, Innovation,Inside Housing,Internet Portal,Internetalia, Invu,Ireland,Irish,Inphase , IT Budget,IT Training,iWorld, Innovation Group Apex,ITIL, In4Systems Promaster,IT,Insight, Keylogic,Keystone,Kirona,Kypera,Keyfax, Ledgers,Linkedin,Locality,Liquid Voice, MD ,Mr Void , MrVoid, Measuring Change,Mebus,Miracle,MISCS, mobile functionality,Monopoly board images and pictures, Montal,MS Dynamics,MS Dynamics CRM2011,Miracle Software,Management Reporting,MI,M3,MIS,MIS-AMS,Mobysoft, Northgate Codeman,Neighbourhoods and Communities, Northgate,Notice,NROSH,NINTEX , NINTEX workflow,Nintexworkflow, OA,OGC Buying Solutions,Ohms,OJEU Limits,OmFax,Omniledger,Open source software,open tender,OpenHousing,Opti-Time,Oracle,Orchard,Outsource and outsourcing,OpenContractor,ORS,OneServe, PIMMS Data Systems, Paloma,performance management systems,PfH, Pick,PIMMS,pimms4communities, Planned maintenance,People Value,Plus, Peoplevalue, PM,Progress,Promaster,Proval,Pyramid,PRINCE2,prince,Pamwin,PlanForm, Propoints, Pro-Points QL,QLX,Quiss,Qlikview, Registered Providers,Registered Social Landlord,Rent Increase Freezes,Repairfinder,Reporting,Reports,ROCC , Rocket,RPs,RSL,Reality,ReAct,reidmark,RM865, Saffron,SAP,Scots, Scottish,Scenario, Scotland,SDM,sector,TonySmithHou,Server Virtualisation,servicing, Servitor,Sharepoint,Simdel,Simdell,SimPro,Slash and Burn,Social Media,Software,SQL Open Housing,SQL Reporting Services,SQL reporting services,SQL Server,Star rating,Stores and Stock,Strategic Asset Management,Sunguard ,Surveys,Sx3,System alignment, TonySmithHousing, Systemwise,SM,Sequoa,Serros,SP,Scout,score,Swordfish,Serengeti,SOTI,southview,Sunguard,Service Charges,Spotlight Service, Spotlightservice, SunAccounts Template,Task,Terminal Services, tonys , tonysm , tonysmi , tonysmith, tonysmitht, gotonysmith, tableau Business Dashboards, tonysmithth, tonysmiththa, tonysmiththat, tonysmiththath, tonysmiththatho, tonysmiththathou, tonysmiththathous, tonysmiththathousi, tonysmiththathousin, tonysmiththathousing, tonysmiththathousingg, tonysmiththathousinguy, sharepoint, share point Three Star,Today,Total repairs,Tribal,Twitter,U2, tonysmith , tonysmiththat , thathousing , thathousingIT , thathousingITguy ,TED,Tagish Casework,TP Tracker,Telecetera,Tagra,Trace, Totalmobile, Total Mobile, UniClass Enterprise,Unidata,Universal Housing,Universalcredit, universal credit, universal credits,UC,Universe,Unrest, UK, United Kingdom ,Ukhousing,UK Housing, Van Stock,Voice and data,Vantage Sentinel,Version One,Visualmetrics,Voluntas, Wales,Welsh,Windows Server,Workflow and tasking,Wheatley,worksConnect, Xmbrace,XML ,XenApp,Xen App .

Bought & Sold

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK
or LinkedIn here http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

A piece of social housing ICT infrastructure news this week, you might have missed. Montal, Microsoft Gold Certified partner, who supply much of the social housing sector with cloud, hardware and other support services, were acquired by Castleton Technology PLC, for £3.84M on the 24th June 2014. You can read the full stock exchange text here - http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail.html?announcementId=11991655

The press release states " Castleton is an AIM quoted public company focused on investing in the technology sector. Montal is the first acquisition of its strategy to build a managed services business focussed on the housing and public sectors. The transaction was arranged by our shareholders MXC Capital, who are also significant shareholders of Castleton. Ian Smith, managing partner of MXC Capital is the CEO of Castleton".

It will be very interesting how the experience of customers in the social housing sector goes, with these changes. Also, with a focus on managed services, where that that leaves Montals' IT Consulting team, is unclear.

Read on to a few more sales in the last few months: Keystone , Promaster, Northgate up for sale
 

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You can link with me on LinkedIn here - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy It would be great to connect !

Rory Gallaher - Bought & Sold.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

PS As usual, if there are subjects you might like me to tackle on this blog, please get in touch and let me know!

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