
Sat-Nav equipped Uber drivers have proven how, in today’s world you don’t need “the knowledge” to know where you are going nor the best way to get there. Consequently, they have utterly disrupted the traditional taxi business model. Uber have had a bad year in 2017 – and the truth is as soon as they replace the weak link in the chain – humans – most of their problems will vanish.
Millions of drivers put their faith in sat-nav systems daily. They trust the system to make decisions on their behalf, they have faith in its abilities – beyond their own – apart from the older generation who stoically insist they know best. Systems like "Waze" update constantly with traffic info and help you avoid jams. Things local knowledge can’t possibly anticipate.
So why do we put our faith in these electronic gadgets to make life easier for us?
- First and foremost it’s knowledge. You cannot be expected to know every road, its length, traffic conditions and every alternative route off the top of your head.
- Speed. Computers make millions of calculations per second. More than you can cope with, especially when you are driving – that should be you most important priority.
- Opinion. Computers don’t have any. Every decision is based upon fact. The computer doesn’t have a preference for the M6 or the M1 – but it knows which it likely to get there quicker.
- It's up to date. New roads, bridges, traffic jams. It is more upto date more of the time.
- It doesn’t argue with you. No more map-rage-quits on holiday with the family on board! Many holidays have been ruined by parents arguing en route.

So, let’s apply the same 5 rules to making decisions about your asset register.
· What are you going to upgrade first?
· What funding, if any, is out there?
· Do you qualify?
· Which houses should you do first?
· Where are the biggest returns on investment?
· Where can you save the most kWh’s, or tonnes of carbon?
· Where can your decisions have the biggest impact upon fuel poverty?
Just like the sat-nav example people are trusting computers and software to help them make informed decisions. Planning an energy reduction journey across your portfolio is exactly like planning an actual journey. The computer has no idea it isn’t a car and a road after all, everything is just 1’s and 0’s. Provided you input a genuine starting point and an achievable destination, then you can plan a more effective route using computing to crunch the numbers for you.
Applying the same top 5 from sat-nav, but for housing stock
- Knowledge. Today’s cloud computing solution has massive benefits over yesterdays CD based tools. The cloud offers true computing power on a scale unlike anything that’s gone before.
- Tools like IRT’s DREam can map, model, analyse and roadmap a house in less than 0.4 seconds.
- Agnostic, holistic results - every time. Software doesn’t offer an opinion as to what needs to be done, it merely calculates the savings based on facts. This is imperative when optimising your refurbishment programme and your budget.
- Up to date. Keeping one platform upto date with regulations saves you time and money. Why waste your time constantly trying to stay on top of an extremely fluid market when you could sit back and trust a computer to keep you informed? That’s why we invented computers after all – to help us with the heavy lifting.
- Just like sat-nav, using software to help make data driven decisions reduces board level friction. You don’t have to justify why you have chosen option A over B – it’s not about which sales person was the most persistent or charming. Your board will trust the data and won’t blame you for the choices it made.
Cars today have sat-nav built in. Phones have sat-nav built in. It’s trusted and everywhere. It works and it saves time and money.
The best news of all is that technology to roadmap your assets, is available today, it’s online and it’s low cost. It can be found at www.irtdream.co.uk

Sign up for a free trial today and see what DREam could deliver to your organisation.