Board 21 September 2021 - IT and Digital Strategy

Appendix 1 – IT and Digital Strategy

A robust IT & Digital Strategy is pivotal to all successful organisations, and YHN has faced considerable challenges in relation to the absence of a strategy over the past few years. In addition to this, COVID-19 has pushed us to rapidly change how we operate which has tested our IT and Digital capabilities as never before. As we enter into recovery phase from the pandemic, it is important to establish a long-term strategy for greater resilience and to apply lessons learned from the experience to create an IT & Digital roadmap that better prepares YHN for the future, and this strategy sets out our vision.

Our Destination 2022 Business Strategy set out some ambitious plans describing where we wanted to be in 2022. As we developed this strategy, our next Business Strategy post 2022 is also in development and the IT & Digital strategy has been written to support the future aspirations for the organisation.

Our vision “to be first for housing” still remains very much at the forefront of our strategic ambitions, and the last few years have highlighted our purpose “to make living easier” is even more important than ever. Our strategic priorities remain the same.

Where we are now

The technology landscape within YHN has evolved in response to the varying demands and priorities of the business over the last year especially in response to the pandemic.

Our recent IT focus has been providing an enabled workforce to continue to provide core services in an ever-changing working environment and to support customers to ensure they can access services in the absence of face-to-face support.

The majority of customer services are currently delivered via phone, email and in person. During 2021 we launched a new look website which began our customer digital offer with an improved portal. This on-line account allows customers to check rent accounts and report repairs and to date, just over 2000 customers have registered to use it. Phase 2 of this project needs to explore more functionality to improve the end user experience.

Our employees have been IT enabled from some time in the traditional office-based environment, last year saw the greatest transformation in relation to IT with now 94% of employees enabled to work from home (60% via corporate devices). Our frontline staff in Repairs and Construction are now enabled with mobile devices to ensure they are connected, but not all employees have the most effective solutions, and we can do more.

As a Housing Management provider, the core systems we use include Northgate Housing Management, Apex Asset Management and Kirona Repairs Management. In addition to these systems, we also co-own Abritas which is facilitates our Choice-Based Lettings Service.

Currently these systems are not full optimised and there is limited integration with elements of duplication resulting in inefficiencies. We are currently utilising Power BI for our data and performance reporting but not against a single data warehouse which restricts the ability to mine value from the data.

Being an ALMO we have strong links with Newcastle City Council (NCC), and they supply our infrastructure and network security. Most of our systems are on-premise with a small number of cloud solutions. We work in collaboration with NCC to provide support to our colleagues but accept this could be more joined up.

We feel our current service delivery model does not fully meet the current and future needs of the business or support our ability to engage customers in an effective and efficient way. Successful organisational change and transformation will rely on the effective deployment and use of technology and the empowering of our workforce to use it.

Where we are going

The YHN IT and Digital Strategy is framed to respond to current challenges as well as preparing us for the future and the challenges envisaged over the next three years to 2024.

Based on these principles our vision is clear:

To deliver an effective IT and Digital offer that enables an amazing customer experience for all, inspired by the voice of the customer.

Our strategy over the coming years will be supported by four initiatives that need to be held in balance, resources and focus need to be shared among these areas.

How we will get there

This IT and Digital Strategy is shaped to support the next phase of business transformation with an emphasis on delivering increasingly joined up services that are effective and designed around the needs of service users.

Customer digital offer                                                                               

The strategy will design and deliver customer-centric, accessible services providing a consistently great customer experience whatever channel customers choose.

The customer digital offer will cover all core services and support successful outcomes first time, and when ‘human-free’, at a time to suit them.

We will:

• Engage with our customers to get a real sense of their experience to inform improvements to our customer journey processes
• Enhance our website and develop a mobile app to provide a choice of effective gateways for customers
• Transform service delivery through integration of systems providing improved first contact resolution
• Develop our Customer Relationship Management System to provide colleagues with a single view of our customers enabling us to provide a joined up, holistic service
• Unify our customer communication channels providing customers with a consistent and continuous service independent of their method of communicating with us
• Acknowledge a proportion of our customers are in digital poverty and experience digital exclusion. Therefore, we will work with our Housing Services colleagues to support customers to enable them to go digital when they are ready.

Empower employees                                                                                

The strategy will design and deliver user-centric, accessible systems providing a great user experience from anywhere. Employees will be actively engaged in transformation and innovation, making it easy to be Ready, Amazing, Revolutionary & Energetic.

The IT Service provided will be customer-focused with an emphasis on finding innovative solutions and continuous digital change.

We will:

• Invest in improving skills, attitude, and knowledge, both amongst our IT and operational colleagues
• Transform our systems to improve usability and eliminate duplication
• Introduce consistent processes
• Service Improvement Plan delivered to improve colleague experience
• Introduce a user-centric induction offer for new starters in collaboration with operational colleagues
• Encourage colleagues to discuss problems, ideas, and opportunities with IT at an early stage to enable solutions to be developed in partnership
• Move to a role-based approach to device and system allocation to ensure colleagues have the right equipment to do their job
• Introduce change control & improve asset management to minimise disruption to services and frustration for colleagues.

Use Data more effectively                                                                          

Data will be a driving force in transforming the organisation’s services and decision-making.

We will:

• Educate our colleagues on the value of data and their role in protecting it
• Streamline our systems and processes to ensure data only needs to be entered in one place
• Develop a data warehouse solution which combines datasets to create one version of the truth
• Reconstruct our document libraries to remove obsolete items and digitise the remainder, then introduce guidance to effectively maintain it.

Collaborative Transformation                                                                      

The strategy will create a collaborative approach to change & transformation that focuses on organisation- wide priorities and provides value for money.

We will:

• Introduce a cross-organisation panel accountable to the executive team and responsible for delivering transformation and change
• Develop a framework to ensure projects are managed effectively and deliver ROI
• Introduce a colleague group of innovators to help embed a culture of innovation across the organisation and be advocates for change
• Develop a strong network of like-minded organisations to share ideas and canvas tech providers to deliver in line with our ambitions
• Continuously horizon-scan to identify emerging technologies that we can exploit.

Underpinning Principles Through All We Do                   

Cloud First

We will move to a cloud-based environment, reducing in-house support overheads and creating the flexibility we need to meet our digital ambitions.

Maximising Existing Investments

Acknowledging we will always need different solutions to meet all our operational needs, we will ensure we maximise functionality available from existing systems

Buy not Build

We will focus on developing strong partnerships with key digital suppliers to meet our ambitions rather than creating ongoing support risks by developing in-house.

Collaboration with NCC

We will always have close connections with the City Council, and we will work hard to ensure this is maintained as our digital landscape evolves, whilst ensuring we receive value for money from their services.

Getting IT Right

We will ensure colleagues have the right equipment, applications, and support to deliver their services. We will ensure we take out risks to the business from outdated or unsupported systems, and poorly controlled changes.

How we will know when we’ve got there