Asset Management Software Survey
Foreword Welcome to the Asset Management Software Survey. Firstly I would like to convey my thanks to all those who took the time to complete the survey. I hope you will find the resulting information contained within this report to be genuinely beneficial to you and your organisation. The aim of this survey is to assist social housing landlords to understand the experiences of others in the sector around the key areas of; selection, implementation and use in practice. In time it is hoped this will become a definitive resource that asset managers will refer to when considering the needs of their organisations. On the flip side it may prove useful to software developers to benchmark their performance against their competitors. Ken Morgan, Partner (Member), FRICS
Contents. Executive Summary. Who Took Part. Software. Implementation. Functionality and Quality. Integration. Value for Money. Overall Results 9. Conclusion
. Executive Summary Asset management software has evolved significantly over the last years. Strategic asset management has a higher organisational priority in these austere times. Asset management staff expect even more from asset management software as part of their strategic tool kit. Software solutions help to keep your finger on the pulse with regards to managing your assets. The survey was sent out to over people who work for Registered Providers, ALMOs and Local Authorities. We received responses. The survey covered a number of areas such as; service provided by the software provider, quality of the product, ease of implementation, value for money and overall satisfaction with the product. The key highlights of the survey concluded: Overall satisfaction results from those surveyed revealed that % of responses when taking everything into account rated their software from to ( is excellent, is very poor). However % rated their software from - being less satisfied with their product or solution On average the highest rated software when asked the question taking everything into account, how do you rate the software was PT s Lifespan. Please see table below for all of the results: Taking everything into account, how do you rate the Software Provider software? Lifespan 9. Innovation Apex. Keystone. Estate pro. Integrator. Promaster. Codeman. PimssCommunities. 9 Taking everything into account, how do you rate the software?
The overall customer experience when taking all aspect of the survey into account tells a slightly different story which is illustrated as follows by software provider: Overall Score Codeman Promaster Innovation Apex PimssCommunities Estate pro Integrator Keystone Lifespan....... When asked whether you would recommend your current software, the result was split between % who would recommend their software and % would not % of responses said they are not looking to replace the system in the next months compare with % who are looking to actively replace In contrast, when asked does the product fully meet your needs, the answer was less positive. % of people said that the software does not meet their needs, compared to % who said yes, the software does % of responses felt that the software lived up to the initial sales pitch and promises, where as 9% felt it didn t and % felt it only partially did In terms of programme implementation, % said it overran where as % said it ran to time. % felt it was due to the software provider, % said it was not the software providers fault and % said the programme did not over run Ease of implementation, % felt the implementation was handled well by the software provider (rating -) where as % felt this was not handled as well as it could have been (rating -) Value for money, % agreed that the final bill matched the original quote, % said it was much larger and % experienced a much lower than anticipated bill. Overall % felt the software was excellent value for money (-) where as % felt less satisfied (-) With regards to improvements, there was a general theme around the need to create custom reports as apposed to the standard suite of reports which are included at implementation
. Who Took Part This year we received anonymous responses from a range of Registered Providers, ALMOs and Local Authorities. This was broken down by the size of the organisation. It should be noted these are predominately London and South East based organisations. The spread is illustrated below in table : Table How many housing units do you manage? How many housing units do you manage? Answer Options Response Response Percent Count -.% -.% -,.%,-,.%,-,.%,-,.%,+.% % % % % % % % - - -,,-,,-,,-,,+ We asked people which best described their position within their respective organisations. This is outlined in table below: Table Which of these most closely matches your job title? Which of these most closely matches your job title? Answer Options Response Response Percent Count Administrator.% Surveyor.% Senior surveyor.% Manager.% Senior Manager 9.9% Director 9.% CEO.% Other.9% % % % % % % % % Administrator Surveyor Senior surveyor Manager Senior Manager Director CEO Other
. Software Of the respondents the following asset management software is used. This is summarised in the graph below: Number of Responses by Software In terms of the modules used, the most commonly used module was stock condition followed by planned maintenance. It is interesting to note that reactive maintenance is the lowest used module. Table outlines the various modules and the frequency of their use within the sector: Table Which aspects of the assets do you manage through the software? Answer Options Response Response Percent Count Reactive maintenance.% Planned maintenance.% Stock condition.% Compliancy.% Plant asset.% Financial planning.% Document management.% With regards to systems integration and effective data transfers between the various systems as consultants we have experienced a common complaint around this aspect when talking to clients. The result of this question highlights this as the majority of those who responded answered that their housing system does not link to their asset management system.
It could be argued that the asset management system should be the organisations core system and everything else should be built around it. The assets are the one aspect which are fixed. Generally organisations build systems around housing management systems which holds variable and changing data, as they work on the general basis of tenant information. What is clear is that they need to be integrated to be affective and efficient. Please see table : Table Does this system link to your housing management system? Answer Options Response Response Percent Count Yes.% No.% Does this system link to your housing management system?.%.% Yes No The following series of questions were asked about the experience with the software providers. This has been summarised by using an average of all responses received specifically to the software providers. These are been broken down into; implementation, functionality and quality, integration, value for money and overall satisfaction. We have removed any packages which received only one response or which is not a specific piece of asset management software. The higher the score the higher the satisfaction, all responses were rated -.
. Implementation How would you rate the service provided by the software company BEFORE implementation of the Software Provider software? Lifespan. PimssCommunities. Keystone. Estate pro. Innovation Apex. Promaster. Integrator. Codeman. How would you rate the service provided by the software company DURING implementation of the Software Provider software? PimssCommunities. Lifespan. Integrator. Keystone. Estate pro. Innovation Apex. Promaster. Codeman. How would you rate the service provided by the software company AFTER implementation of the Software Provider software? Lifespan 9. Estate pro. Integrator. Keystone. PimssCommunities. Innovation Apex. Promaster. Codeman.
GRAPH: How would you rate the service provided by the software company BEFORE/DURING/ AFTER implementation of the software? 9 Lifespan Estate pro Integrator Keystone PimssCo Innovation Promaster Codeman mmunities Apex Before...... During....... After 9.......
How would you rate the responsiveness of the software provider to your Software Provider instructions? Lifespan. Estate pro. Keystone. Integrator. PimssCommunities. Innovation Apex. Promaster. Codeman. How would you rate the responsiveness of the software provider to your instructions? 9
. Functionality and Quality How would you rate the product in terms of stability and Software Provider reliability? Estate pro. Lifespan. Innovation Apex. Keystone. PimssCommunities. Promaster. Integrator. Codeman. How would you rate the product in terms of stability and reliability? How would you rate the functionality in terms of what the software provider said it would do, and what it Software Provider actually does? Lifespan. Keystone. Integrator. Innovation Apex. Estate pro. Promaster. PimssCommunities. Codeman.9 How would you rate the functionality in terms of what the software provider said it would do, and what it actually does?
How easy do staff find this software package to use on a day-today Software Provider basis? Integrator. PimssCommunities. Keystone. Lifespan. Promaster. Estate pro. Innovation Apex. Codeman. How easy do staff find this software package to use on a day-to-day basis?
. Integration How easy was it to integrate the software with your existing systems (such as finance and housing management Software Provider systems)? Keystone. Lifespan. Innovation Apex. Estate pro. Integrator. Promaster. PimssCommunities. Codeman.9 How easy was it to integrate the software with your existing systems (such as finance and housing management systems)? How receptive were staff to any training offered on the Software Provider new software? Lifespan. Keystone. Integrator. Promaster.9 Innovation Apex. Codeman. Estate pro. PimssCommunities. How receptive were staff to any training offered on the new software?
How easy was it to transfer your existing data into the Software Provider new software? PimssCommunities. Integrator. Estate pro. Keystone. Lifespan. Codeman. Innovation Apex. Promaster. How easy was it to transfer your existing data into the new software? 9 Overall, how satisfied were you with the ease of implementation, based purely on the product and support provided by the software house (i.e. disregard problems Software Provider with your staff)? Integrator. PimssCommunities. Lifespan. Estate pro. Keystone.9 Innovation Apex. Promaster.9 Codeman. 9 Overall, how satisfied were you with the ease of implementation, based purely on the product and support provided by the software house (i.e. disregard problems with your staff)?
. Value for Money How did the price quoted at the start of the project compare to the Software Provider final bill? Keystone. Estate pro. Integrator. Lifespan. PimssCommunities. Innovation Apex. Promaster. Codeman. How did the price quoted at the start of the project compare to the final bill? Overall, how satisfied were you that the software provided value for Software Provider money? Lifespan 9. Estate pro. Integrator. PimssCommunities. Keystone. Promaster. Innovation Apex. Codeman. 9 Overall, how satisfied were you that the software provided value for money?
. Overall Results Taking everything into account, how do you rate the software? Taking everything into account, how do you rate the Software Provider software? Lifespan 9. Innovation Apex. Keystone. Estate pro. Integrator. Promaster. Codeman. PimssCommunities. 9 The results show below take all aspect into account to provide the overall score: Overall Score Software Provider Overall Score Lifespan.9 Keystone 9.9 Integrator 9.9 Estate pro 9. PimssCommunities 9. Innovation Apex 9. Promaster. Codeman.
9. Conclusion In conclusion customers felt most satisfied overall with PT s Lifespan software. This was demonstrated in the overall customer experience score and general rating of the product. Northgate s Codeman was rated lowest by its customers. There was a general dissatisfaction across all providers around integration of software with other systems and around budget certainty with regards to the anticipated final bill. This is an area that all providers need to explore further with their customers and consider what their needs are. There is clear opportunity to expand the amount of modules which are used within each piece of software. It is unclear from the survey whether this is due to a lack of availability or that the modules do not fully meet the user s needs. What is clear is that the solutions are not fully meeting the expectations of customers which was demonstrated by % of people who felt the software did not meet their needs. There was a common theme around reporting outputs. In my experience many organisations use rd party plug in order to extract the information they require as the standard reports are not sufficient. The ability to create customised reports which can extract any field is a must for users. I hope you have found this survey enlightening and helpful. responses next year to further build on this useful resource. I look forward to receiving your If you would like further information regarding this survey or if you wish to input into the survey please contact Surekha Owens: sowens@jrp.co.uk or 99.
Our Asset Management Services The challenges Our scope of services The benefits to you A greater focus needed on asset management Housing Revenue Account Increased regulatory requirements to drive value from existing assets Reduced revenue due to the Welfare Reforms Act Lack of understanding of the performance of assets Lack of clear practical strategy and policy Poor quality asset data No clear strategy for reinvestment Asset management strategy and policy writing Asset Investment Model (A.I.M) Geographic Information System asset mapping Bespoke stock condition surveying Stock option appraisals and whole estate reviews Software advice Land appraisals Stock programming Retrofit advice Maintenance VFM Grounds / Cleaning A clear strategic direction An opportunity to maximise income Value for money assessment A clear understanding of assets Tackle poor performing assets Utilise opportunities Achieve a clear reinvestment programme Raise resident satisfaction Improve communities and property standards Disclaimer The reported survey response data in this survey does not reflect or constitute the opinions, endorsement, or position of John Rowan and Partners or any of its staff. The opinions and responses presented are solely those of the survey respondents. Because the data constitutes opinions, different interpretations are possible. John Rowan and Partners does not assume responsibility for interpretation or reaction to this data.