Have You Seen Your Software Suppliers’ 5-Year Roadmap?

A clear sense of direction is essential if a housing association wants to grow and succeed. One way of achieving this is through a well-designed roadmap, which serves as a strategic blueprint to align goals and recommend steps to achieve business objectives.

Roadmaps provide a dynamic, visual guide that helps teams stay on course while adapting to new challenges and opportunities. That’s why it’s important for housing associations to evaluate their software supplier’s five-year roadmap, to ensure that the solution they invest in today will meet their needs over the long term.?

In this article, we’ll explore why a housing software supplier’s roadmap is essential for housing associations and how ROCC’s roadmap solution ticks all of the right boxes.

Why is a supplier’s roadmap vital?

A business roadmap is an important tool for navigating the complex journey of growth, innovation and success at an organisation.

Here’s why a supplier’s roadmap is essential for housing associations:

• Considers strategic goals: A roadmap reveals how well the system aligns with a housing association's future goals, whether that’s improving tenant services or supporting sustainability targets. Software needs to be a supportive tool as strategic priorities evolve.
• Demonstrates ongoing innovation: Housing technology quickly evolves, which means systems can soon become outdated. A roadmap offers a forward-thinking approach that ensures a housing association is supported by the latest technological advancements.
• Adapts to regulatory changes: Housing associations operate within strict regulatory frameworks that require systems to stay up-to-date with compliance standards. Software needs to meet any changing requirements and regulatory shifts.
• Facilitates continuous improvement: Roadmaps should include plans for performance optimisation, enhanced reporting and automated workflows. Implementing new, efficiency-enhancing features will help an organisation streamline operations and improve tenant services.
• Supports emerging technologies and trends: New trends and tech are constantly impacting the housing sector. Plans need to incorporate these innovations to provide housing associations with tools to remain competitive and responsive to tenant needs.

A robust roadmap aligns the supplier’s vision with the housing association’s future, delivering value well into the future.

The solution: ROCC’s roadmap

ROCC’s roadmap is designed to address both the current and future needs of the housing sector. We strive to keep pace with industry changes, technological advancements and evolving customer expectations, to ensure that our platform remains highly relevant and forward-thinking for housing associations.

Here’s a detailed look at the core components of our roadmap:

• Customer-driven development: We actively engage with customers through our ROCC Strategic Advisory Board, composed of housing associations and local authorities across the UK, who share insights and influence our product development. Additionally, our dedicated customer feedback channels allow individual clients to propose new features or improvements.
• Innovations in compliance and safety management: Regulatory compliance is always evolving in the housing sector. Our roadmap includes continuous updates to compliance management modules, ensuring clients can meet legal requirements with built-in audit trails, automated reminders and reporting tools.
• Enhanced mobile and field-service capabilities: ROCC’s roadmap includes continuous development of mobile solutions to empower field-service operatives. Future updates focus on streamlining field service workflows, expanding offline functionality and adding new mobile tools for diagnostics, real-time job updates and communication with the central office.
• Seamless integration: Our roadmap emphasises robust integration capabilities, including true open APIs and connectors for a range of housing management systems, financial systems and third-party applications. We allow housing associations to optimise their technology ecosystems and extend functionality across platforms.
• Predictive maintenance and asset management: By analysing historical maintenance data and asset performance trends, ROCC’s AI models can predict when certain assets are likely to fail or require servicing. This enables housing providers to schedule maintenance before issues arise. Plus, AI-powered diagnostics tools help contact centre staff and tenants accurately identify repair issues at the point of reporting, leading to a more accurate initial assessment. We also help housing associations reduce call centre workloads and provide faster responses to improve the tenant experience.

• Predictive analytics for budgeting: ROCC’s AI models assist housing associations in forecasting maintenance costs and budgeting for repairs by analysing past expenditure patterns and upcoming maintenance requirements.
• Energy management and sustainability: Finally, we are developing AI tools to monitor and manage energy usage across properties. These tools can analyse energy consumption patterns, detect inefficiencies and suggest adjustments that support energy-saving initiatives. This improves operational efficiency while reducing environmental impact.

How R-SAB helps deliver our 5-year plan

The ROCC Strategic Advisory Board (R-SAB) consists of leaders from some of our most dynamic and progressive partners across the UK. Everybody on the board is carefully selected to offer a diverse range of ideas, perspectives and personalities in the team, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of the housing sector’s unique challenges.

One of R-SAB’s primary roles is to advise on ROCC’s product roadmap. Members do this by:

• Providing feedback on existing features
• Suggesting new functionalities
• Highlighting emerging sector trends that may affect the platform’s relevance
• Talking about current and future issues

For example, R-SAB has been instrumental in prioritising developments in areas such as compliance tracking, environmental sustainability and predictive analytics. This guidance allows ROCC to focus resources on the features and capabilities that will deliver the highest value to clients.

By engaging with R-SAB members, ROCC stays ahead of the curve in understanding industry shifts. This insight ensures that we are prepared to tackle future challenges, making sure that our software adapts to the evolving landscape of housing management.

Also, R-SAB members contribute their experiences and feedback on the practical use of ROCC’s solutions, including implementation processes, user experience and system integrations. This feedback allows ROCC to refine its five-year plan.

The customer is at the heart of everything we do at ROCC. Through R-SAB, we are able to gain valuable, real-world insights from trusted clients, fostering a culture that is responsive to client needs and dedicated to helping housing providers meet their strategic objectives effectively.

Conclusion: Next steps

Don’t be afraid to ask for your software supplier’s five-year roadmap – it’s important.

At ROCC, our commitment to being a trusted partner is demonstrated through our forward-thinking five-year roadmap and its dedication to customer-driven development.

Thanks to the R-SAB, our roadmap is not only aligned with the latest industry trends and regulatory requirements but also directly shaped by the needs of our clients. We will continue to address the core challenges facing housing associations today, so you can stay competitive and efficient.

We believe our five-year roadmap sets a benchmark in the industry. So, you can trust us to deliver a future-ready software solution that has your housing association’s best interests at its core.

For more information, get in touch with a member of our customer service team today to see how we can revolutionise your organisation with our best-in-class housing software.