NOTTING HILL GENESIS
“ I wanted the same simplicity and intuitiveness integrated into platforms such as Netflix ”
RAJIV PETER GROUP CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER , NOTTING HILL GENESIS was seen as a cost centre rather than as a value centre .”
Today , however , the NHG team is firmly behind transformational tech in achieving its strategy , meaning that there ’ s “ a digital element to all business plans , which has had a knock-on effect ”.
“ These are things that , generally , a typical housing association wouldn ' t be doing but we have done . Now , it seems like everybody else is looking to do the same things themselves .”
Peter operates with a ‘ why rediscover and reinvent the wheel when you can collaborate ?’ mentality , which feeds directly into the decision to form a commercial arm that focuses on the dissemination of technology-based innovations .
“ As a sector , we ’ ll all benefit a lot more by collaborating . Everybody ' s starting to recognise that technology is expensive and complicated , so trying to do this alone is probably not sustainable . The idea behind this new company is that we will all pull in and share technology from a single place .” A big driver of Peter ’ s is the notion of “ getting the basics right ” – do this , and the rest is much easier . In 2018 , when the merger to form NHG occurred , a major concern all round was fundamental operationality . How could the new association serve residents effectively if it didn ’ t have the right tools , systems or functionality ?
“ We had over 200 disparate systems , each kind of doing the job but not efficiently . It was probably very good in the early 2000s , but it ’ s not what we expect today ” he laughs . “ My main strategy was to bring everything together as much as possible in one ecosystem . And we have literally just finished that mission , the last part of which was to move everything into the cloud .” technologymagazine . com 141