UK housing associations offer framework worth up to £400m to eBay-for-plumbers startup (but it won't get to keep it all)
- Reference: 1595950694
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/07/28/housing_associations_tender/
- Source link:
The Peabody Group, which owns and manages more than 66,000 properties across London and southeast England, together with the 55,000-property Notting Hill Genesis housing association, have awarded the contract to the startup to provide "maintenance services" via its dynamic purchasing platform. The idea is to provide a "seamless marketplace" for tenants looking for contractors to do repair works.
Plentific will help with the setup and structure of the Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) which will "on-board" suppliers, ensuring they meet trade-specific minimum standards and ensure tenants can book with those firms that are near them, helping keep down carbon emissions and supporting the local economy.
Although Plentific will design and run the DPS, the DPS itself will be procured separately. The tech company, which gained $32m in Series B funding in June, will be responsible for facilitating the marketplace as well as issuing and monitoring repair tasks via its infrastructure. It will also have overall responsibility for vetting and monitoring the performance of the contractors.
The [1]tender award notice said the contract is worth £400m, which represents the value of the jobs done by the supply chain and the overall value of the framework.
The amount Plentific will receive will depend on the volume of work going through the framework, which is linked to the numbers of housing associations and public organisations using it.
The startup's platform is built on Python 3, a Postgres database, and web framework Django, hosted on Amazon AWS. It integrates with services including payment solution Mangopay and cloud comms platform Twilio.
A Peabody Group statement said: "The DPS Marketplace framework provides landlords with smart capacity management through a flexible and competitive labour force and trade businesses unprecedented access to work, providing they meet strict, trade-specific requirements.
"Plentific's expertise in PropTech facilitates the dynamic, digital marketplace. The company will also ensure the smooth running of operations through its cutting-edge platform – from vetting new contractors to issuing responsive repair tasks and voids work through to monitoring and reporting operational KPIs."
In a canned statement, Plentific CEO and co-founder Cem Savas said: "The trials with Peabody and Notting Hill Genesis have shown that our system brings substantial benefits. It can dramatically improve customer satisfaction levels, speed up repairs, lower costs for clients, and help support small and medium-sized businesses."
According to Crunchbase, the firm, which describes itself as an "equity-backed business" has inhaled [2]$41m in funding from investors including Round Hill Ventures and Pi Labs. Nice work if you can get it. ®
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[1] https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:356007-2020:TEXT:EN:HTML&src=0
[2] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/plentific/company_financials
[3] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
quality control an optional extra.
Small and local
Hello All
Housing Cooperative tenant here - couple of hundred tenancies:
We have Dave with the Van for minor repairs (flush not working, gutter fell off in the wind, fence fell over &c) and triage of more major work.
Contracts with a gas fitter, electrician, plumber and roofing/larger build jobs contractor including emergency call-out
Cyclic maintenance (new kitchens/bathrooms/doors/windows) jobs go out to tender, usually bundled into 10 house lots.
Works for us and the transaction overhead is a phone call to Mavis. Nothing like £40 per household!
Edit: QA contractors have to be on the qualified list held by the housing management agent. Published criteria and appeals process if any company refused &c.
Why so large a scale one asks?
Coat: mine's the one with a copy of E. F. Schumacher's volume in the pocket
Re: Small and local
I read the story thinking, that's one expensive database. But eventually it becomes clear, that's not what the money refers to: it's more like the total value of work being directed through the platform.
In your case, it sounds like you don't have a very clear understanding of the costs. Who pays for the list of approved suppliers?
I don't think it's the tenants that will be buying and scheduling the works - surely the landlords...?
In before "python is a crap choice for this" by python haters.
I believe there are already websites that do similar eg Checkatrade.com. Perhaps not on a per-job basis though.
Putting the jobs to tender like this makes it attractive for folk *not* currently in the south east to bid on those jobs. Also for "make a loss on the initial bid, make the profit on the changes" gravy train.