Anchor signs 10-year deal with repairs software proptech firm

The decade-long deal was agreed under a ‘five plus five year’ contract, meaning there is an optional break clause after five years.

Sarah Jones, chief executive of Anchor, told Inside Housing the deal represented “a complete transformation of the way we deliver repairs and planned works” across housing, leasehold and care homes.

Anchor currently undertakes 200,000 repairs and maintenance work orders per year for its 65,000 residents. Ms Jones estimated that around £1.7bn of Anchor repair works will be facilitated by the Plentific software over the next 10 years.

Ms Jones said that being able to do repairs “quickly and efficiently” was “absolutely central to the residents’ experience of how they live in our properties”.

“The reality of the world is that there aren’t enough people to do all the things that we need to do,” she said.

“So anything that we can do to reduce friction, make things more efficient in any other respect, will… help our headroom in dealing with other challenging things that might be more out of our control.”

She said Anchor’s employees were excited about the “visibility” the software will provide. “Colleagues will be able to see from the point at which they’ve placed the order the status of that order, the fact that they can take a photograph or a video of the issues, so that it all helps with that triage,” she said.

“We’ve all heard the apocryphal stories about the four trips to change a light bulb and all that sort of stuff – that will all be eliminated by this.”

Residents will also be able to track what’s happening with a job, she added. “To have that ability to be able to book appointments and understand where someone is in that supply chain process is hugely important.”

She noted that, particularly in residential care settings, some repair jobs had “much higher priority” than in other tenures. If lighting goes out in the corner of a room, that could be “absolutely terrifying” for someone with a cognitive impairment, for example.

Cem Savas, chief executive of Plentific, said, “It is the first time in our company’s history that a client has chosen to go all in at once.”

It means that Plentific looks after “all contractor integrations and onboardings and digitalisations, and also that resilience of supply chain issues is all taken care of by the platform. So I think we will see significant operational improvements.

“Our platform is enabling Anchor to process jobs in a flexible way, bringing services to residents more efficiently, achieving value for money, while delivering good-quality homes across Anchor’s communities,” he added.

Last year, Hyde was among seven landlords that agreed contracts with Plentific. Other Plentific clients include Platform, Midland Heart and Longhurst.

In an interview in March, Ms Jones told Inside Housing that Anchor had reshaped its development strategy with a target of 45% social rent on new-build homes.