Getting the most out of data: your residents will feel the difference
When I look at this picture of the Kabukichō entertainment district in Shinjuku, Tokyo, my eyes tell me that there is a huge amount of data written on the buildings. But I am unable to turn any of that data into information that I can use.
There are parallels with the working lives of asset managers who need, now more than ever, to be able to turn data about buildings – and people - into information and business intelligence.
The asset management challenges facing housing providers are greater in number and wider in range than 10 years ago. A dataset that used to consist chiefly of a small number of Decent Homes component lifecycles now also covers thermal performance, building safety, carbon zero, the wider subject of sustainability, damp, mould and condensation, and more.
Types of data
What data is needed now – not only in terms of component lifecycles, but also asset performance and, crucially, about residents?
Identifying where risks intersect means looking at a range of factors, for instance: property archetypes at high risk of damp and mould; customers with either additional needs, at risk of overcrowding, or other such obstacles e.g. cultural or linguistic barriers to accessing services.
Cost-in use
The other data-led issue we see increasing in importance is cost-in-use for residents. Figuring out the property related investments that can make the best value impact on cost-in-use for residents is a key consideration. This amplifies the importance of considering the interaction between people and buildings, rather than the historic focus on the fabric of buildings.
The relative importance of data in informing how to ration scarce resources (money and staff time) is now of an entirely different magnitude. Ways forward that pull data from diverse sources to create a meaningful view of the business to support decision-making have a crucial contribution to make.
Business analysts needed
There is an important layer of asset management technical expertise needed to identify the data points that are sufficient to inform thinking across the range of issues and to capture that data.
But the skills needed to turn that data in to useful information and business intelligence are generic business analysis skills. they have nothing to do with asset management.
Getting the most out of data is now an absolute must. The best at doing so will produce the best outcomes for residents and will maximise value from their budgets. Creating a successful relationship between operational teams and business analysts requires flexibility on both sides. It is very easy to slip into roles where operational teams say what they want, business analysts explain why it’s not possible and operational teams stop asking.
If I asked 100 people in a housing organisation ‘Why did you come into housing?’ if I was lucky one of them might mention ‘to improve data quality and exploit data better.’ But that would be the Data Quality Officer! Everyone else is going to talk about people and properties. But making the difference we all want to make increasingly depends on the data we hold and the use we put it to.
Maximising value from data needs to be in the top three priorities of every operational team. And the capacity and capabilities of your business analysis team need to reflect that level of importance. Your residents will feel the difference.
Jon Slade is a director at the management and recruitment consultancy Campbell Tickell
Further reading
- Can better data deliver smarter asset management?
- Countdown to 2050 -The Retrofit London programme has a key role to play in leading the UK’s towns and cities towards a zero-carbon future
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