To make, buy … or share

Product diversification, growing commercialisation, mergers, acquisitions, insourcing, outsourcing … the sector is awash with tried and tested strategies aimed at mitigating risk and building business resilience. But how can we continue to use yesterday's solutions in an operating environment where radically new solutions are needed to solve increasingly complex problems?

We seem so focused on our 'guilty pleasure' of remaining autonomous businesses that we have lost sight of the need to fundamentally rethink operating models and traditional service and sector boundaries if we are to free up capacity for new homes, drive efficiencies and protect vulnerable frontline services.

How can we argue as a sector that it continues to make sense for 2,000+ housing organisations - all with similar core values and strategic intent, operating shoulder to shoulder within regions - to maintain traditional service boundaries and operating models which duplicate spend within the same communities. How is that demonstrating value for money?

Future advantage will go to organisations which can stimulate and support business-to-business collaboration as a lever to both secure and maximise return across all assets of the business. This means we need to rethink how we can work in collaboration, at a regional level, to deliver more with less resource – and we can do this by sharing. Sharing front line services such as ASB, community cohesion, financial inclusion, repairs, housing management - as well as sharing back office services too, such as shared IT, financial, legal services, HR etc.

Shared services ventures are delivered by you to your customers – so control and ownership remains across the partnership. Sharing 'directly necessary' services, means we can share risk, share investment, share efficiencies, share surpluses and ultimately boost capacity for affordable housing. Who knows, we could even find ourselves generating enough capacity to build homes without any grant funding for years.

How can boards justify, in the short to medium term, strategic options which don't at least explore whether collaborative advantage would provide a step change in capacity and capability?

We're ready to work with you to find collaborative solutions. Are you ready to join the conversation? Visit our LinkedIn page to join the discussion or follow the Twitter hashtag #CollaborateDebate

Download the full publication here

Sharon Collins - HouseMark associate,

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