Housing Associations focused on software integration

In our recent 2020 Technology Survey one word kept coming up from respondents of the survey: Integration.

We asked respondents what were the most important factors they consider when choosing a new piece of software to implement in their organisation. 58.33% said that integration was a key factor (just behind the cost 61.11%).

The survey also asked what was the biggest pain point users had with the technology they use in the workplace and again integration loomed large. Lack of integration was the number one pain point – 65.28%, far ahead of ‘software running slow’ which was the second biggest pain point (52.78%).

But it didn’t end there.

At the end of the survey we asked what would be the one thing users would change about the IT setup in their organisation. Below is a selection of the responses:

• “Better integration between business systems OR one integrated system which provides the functionality we require.”
• “Make data consistent across all systems.”
• “Needs to be updated and identical for all staff”
• “Fully integrated across all systems”
• “Less duplicate systems”
• “Easier system integration”
• “Make it all talk to each other”
• “More focus on integration”
• “Have every system talk to each other”

All of the above answers from our survey go to show the growing importance users are placing on software integration.

However many organisations find themselves using a wide range of solutions to meet their various business needs. Our survey also found that 35.21% are required to use more than 10 systems each week.

The problem with this is that fragmented systems have lead to the following issues for organisations:

• Poor productivity – users are working hard but not smart by having to duplicate certain tasks when using unintegrated software.
• Bad data management – getting a clear single view of your data is near impossible when stored in multiple systems.

At MRI we don’t want our customers to be spending unnecessary time duplicating tasks and entering data over and over into different systems. We want them to have the time they need to focus on their tenants which is why our approach to our software has always been to integrate and seamlessly pass data across all our solutions.

By doing this it means our customers benefit from:

• Real time – as data is passed between systems you can see the latest data in real-time.
• Operational efficiencies – integration removes the need to replicate certain tasks into various systems which brings with it productivity improvements and cost savings.
• Better customer service – you can provide your tenants with the best service by ensuring all staff can see the latest information e.g. notes, rent balances etc across all of our solutions.
• Powerful data – integration allows you to see one version of the truth for your data.

The video below shows our approach to integration:

To find out more about our integration solutions get in touch with us today.

Also if you would like to read the full results from our 2020 Technology Survey you can download a copy here.