Waterstons tech consultancy marks a decade in partnership with London housing association

Gateway Housing Association has 3,000 properties primarily in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets with the aim of providing great homes for people in East London and supporting local communities to thrive.

The housing association first appointed Waterstons in 2011 as its long-term IT partner to work with its in house IT team to provide first, second- and third-line support as well as IT strategy and governance. 

Social housing is a constantly shifting landscape with changing regulations and diverse resident demands. Over the last decade, Waterstons has helped Gateway Housing to deliver significant improvements including long term technical strategy ensuring better return on investment, migration to the Cloud improving employee collaboration, mobilisation of the whole workforce for home working, project management of key business focused IT projects ensuring new tools were delivered to time and cost, and deployment of a new intranet.

The new intranet in particular has transformed internal communications across the business and has seen people engaging with each other in greater depth and at greater pace than ever before.

Waterstons helped the organisation along the journey, ensuring that people from across the business were involved in shaping the direction, and keeping information up to date which is key in ensuring long-term success.

As a result of this, Gateway has been able to ensure clear, fast and transparent communications across a distributed and diverse workforce, enabling their people to respond more efficiently and coherently to the needs of residents as well as saving a significant amount of time and money.

Several of the programmes are in place to future proof Gateway’s IT systems whilst bolstering the resilience of its online services.

Waterstons is a valued part of Gateway’s in-house team, providing an integrated yet flexible trusted consultant for future planning, problem solving and ongoing needs. This was especially prevalent during the Covid-19 pandemic where a different way of working for residents was introduced.

Lynne Shea, Director of Finance and Resources at Gateway Housing Association said: “Waterstons has provided us with great support over the last decade – and what stands out about the business is their willingness to go the extra mile, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic when all of our systems had to go remote virtually overnight.

“We really feel that they are an extension of our in-house team, providing us with valuable strategic direction and advice, and we look forward to continuing to work with them in the future.”

James Alderson, Client Experience Director at Waterstons, continues: “We’re pleased to celebrate 10 years of partnership with Gateway Housing Association. At Waterstons we pride ourselves on our ability to help clients understand their residents’ needs, so they can choose the right technology to help their communities. We feel this has been a success with Gateway, as the sector has shifted and evolved, so have we and we look forward to a long future working with them.”

To find out more about Waterstons, visit: https://www.waterstons.com/ or Gateway Housing Association visit: https://www.gatewayhousing.org.uk/.