Woonbedrijf chooses DeSI tool for data-driven decision-making

Woonbedrijf, an Eindhoven-based housing corporation, has selected DeSi tool to inform data-driven decisions. This tool was developed by consultants and developers from OCS Consulting and Improven.

With around 34,000 homes and several hundred business premises, Woonbedrijf is one of the largest social landlords in Eindhoven and the surrounding area. Like many of its peers, Woonbedrijf is also struggling with several strategic challenges. In an interview last month with the Eindhovens Dagblad, director Ingrid de Boer admitted that the housing corporation needs to work hard if it wants to achieve all its ambitions for new construction, sustainability and affordability of social housing.

To achieve this, the corporation will have to reduce costs, to be achieved by downsizing its organisation and optimising its operations. Woonbedrijf will also sell around 160 homes per year to obtain financing for new construction and to bring its housing stock more in line with the changing housing needs of residents and the price brackets below the social rental limit.

To support the decision-making processes underlying these objectives, Woonbedrijf decided to use the DeSi tool. This tool, developed by OCS Consulting and Improven, helps directors, treasurers, portfolio managers, and housing managers of housing associations to facilitate critical decision moments such as an (dis)investment, financing, multi-year budget, strategy formation and transition plan. DeSI stands for Decision Support Improved. The tool is designed to bundle strategy, treasury, asset management and portfolio management into one model, hosted in the cloud (the tooling runs within SAS software).

“The tool offers reassuring model-based objectivity and quickly provides real-time insight into financial possibilities, continuity, interest rate risk or even social returns,” explains Léon Koolen, who was involved in the development of the tool from Improven. According to Bart Debats, Product Manager of DeSI and working at Improven, the tool is particularly interesting for Woonbedrijf because of the simple way to define and analyse strategic scenarios. “This gives them direct insight into the impact on the financial position (assets and cash flows, ratios), property stock (availability of the right homes, hold/sell, quality) and social contribution (affordability, liveability).”

Debats believes the situation at Woonbedrijf reflects a broader trend in the corporations landscape. While the industry is facing huge changes, many companies are still using complicated Excel models or expensive and overly complex tools to manage their strategic processes. “The tooling landscape at housing associations is in need of renewal and simplification. DeSI is our contribution to that,” he concludes.

Source: Consultancy.co.uk