A philosophical approach to software

When Paloma Systems was launched in 1992 its first client was a housing association and although the company has grown to operate in five different markets the social housing sector still plays a huge role in its everyday operations

Brighton-based Paloma Systems has come a long way since those early days and now operates across the United Kingdom with its turnover on target to hit £1million this year. In the early days P aloma’s services centred around hardware and networks but it now concentrates on software and operates in five core markets.

As well as its work within the social housing sector it also develops software for recruitment companies, a system for agencies to monitor people with addictions to alcohol and drugs, which is the company’s most successful product to date, a system that allows domestic violence agencies, councils and police to share data on victims of domestic and sexual abuse, which is currently being used in two
thirds of the country and a system to allow police forces to manage prolific offenders.

Managing director Thomas Schweizer acknowledges that the company has grown significantly but it has never been his intention to become a large international business. “You have to be a different type of person to do that,” he explains.

For Schweizer it is more important for Paloma to have strong moral values and a social conscience – inside story : paloma systems qualities that tie in with the values of the social housing sector. “We really enjoy working with housing associations they are our most loyal clients and we have never lost one,” he says. “Some have been with us for many many years and are now friends as opposed to just clients.

“We also tie ourselves very much into the philosophy of housing associations. W e tend to be social democrats in terms of outlook, we are very green in how we manage the office and people themselves and that all fits in with the overall objectives of housing associations.”

Schweizer believes that this ethos very much sets Paloma apart from rival companies. He recalls a recent visit from a consultant who recommends suppliers to registered social landlords. “She talked to many different users across the company and when she came back at the end of the day to sit down and talk with us, she said she was amazed that when she asked people what they would change
about Paloma or Paloma software for the first time she had met users who struggled to come up with anything negative or with improvements,” he explains.

“I was just very pleased. The other thing she said is that we are very different from other suppliers because we actually believe in the customer’s service. Many suppliers don’t seem to, they voice it but don’t really give it but we make a big difference to the level of customer service.”

Perhaps Paloma’s affinity with the social housing sector comes from the fact that the company has grown up around registered social landlords, working alongside its clients to come up with new software.

The company was created by Schweizer to provide general IT support and hardware with the aim that at times he would be looking for software applications to develop. He had worked as an IT manager for a national accountancy firm before starting Paloma Systems and one of the partners was the trustee of a housing association. It was through working with him on a number of projects that Schweizer started to work with his first client.

Schweizer says: “When I left the accountancy firm to start Paloma Systems the organisation wanted to continue with the association, which of course I was happy to do and they were my first client and I never looked back after that really. “We initially provided them with overall support for their network.

They then invited me to act as a consultant for a new housing association software package that they were looking to purchase to replace an old one and in doing so I realised that we could do better.

“Windows 95 was just going to be released along with an application called Microsoft Access that gave you chance to develop a database in Windows. So I made a decision then to develop a system for housing associations for accounting which is exactly what I did.

“Shortly after that I had another client located here in Brighton which was again looking for systems and we developed our maintenance management system. We started marketing them and we now have about 60 clients using those two systems.”

Paloma provides three software systems for its social housing clients, its rent accounting software, WRAPP , maintenance management software called JAMM and DAY BOOK, payment collection software. WRAPP operates independently whilst JAMM and DAY BOOK run in tandem with WRAPP.

It works very closely with its clients to develop software and there are three organisations in particular which are constantly pushing Paloma to come up with new products - Worthing Homes,
Bournemouth Churches Housing Association and Coastal Housing Group.

For example Coastal recently contacted Schweizer and asked if Paloma would consider developing a web application to allow the housing association to sell properties to people in Swansea.

Schweizer says: “That is constantly coming up in our relationships with our clients, they keep asking us to do more and more because as their needs change so too do the needs of the software to provide them with the ability to record and report on that data.”

All three clients use WRAPP and JAMM together for every day tasks such as managing rents and arrears and analysis of void properties.

Schweizer says that although Paloma’s software often performs much better than software from some other companies, it doesn’t do anything different in terms of the tasks it allows users to carry out. “I don’t think our software does anything different than others it is just how we approach delivering that solution to the clients,” he says.

Many of the smaller clients that turn to Paloma are simply using inappropriate systems, which make it difficult for them to manage their data. With larger clients they tend to be unhappy with their existing software provider and are looking for software that will perform better.

WRAPP allows clients to move from a spreadsheet system giving them more control over their data, in
terms of reviewing and analysing it and making it easier to produce figures. Some systems can use up to 15,000 tables in a database making it difficult to keep track of data while Paloma sticks to using 70 to 90, a much more manageable number.

It is not only important to have a database that is manageable, clients have to be able to trust that their system will produce accurate figures, which would otherwise only be accessible by going through data manually line by line – a very time consuming process. Paloma Systems has an excellent reputation for providing high quality software that works and its relationships with clients tend to be long-term. In fact it has recently celebrated five years of working with Coastal Housing Group.

Its relationship with the organisation is so strong that when Coastal took over another housing association two years ago, doubling the size of its stock to 5,000 properties, it chose to keep Paloma as its provider of software solutions. “The other housing association had another supplier of software and after a review they decided to stay with P aloma,” says Schweizer. “That is when they discovered how poorly the original software was working for producing figures. Our software is better able to manage the data and to produce accurate figures.”

But while P aloma’s software does a good job for its clients it doesn’t always look as good as other software, something which Schweizer thinks could lead to P aloma being left behind by competitors.

“Our software does work and while they are workhorses they don’t look as flash as some of our competitors. I feel we will lose our market share if we don’t invest in the latest technology,” he says. So he is moving away from the Microsoft Access system to use Dot Net – the latest toolkit from Microsoft, which allows users to build software that is much more visually appealing and can be used on the net or through mobile computing as well as on desktop computers.

“If you look at Microsoft Access it doesn’t look as modern as looking at something in Dot Net, which is a concern because image is important as well as functionality,” explains Schweizer. “If you go to a housing association and give a demonstration to management they are often attracted by a flash demonstration. I t is only when people start using the software that they notice that it doesn’t work
very well and for example it takes 10 steps to get to a form when it should take one. That’s what I am worried about, even though our software performs better, that we are losing out at the first demonstration.”

Paloma is now working with several clients on a re-design to convert WRAPP and JAMM into a single web application document using Dot Net.

“The software for domestic violence and drug addictions are web applications so we have experience in that area says S chweizer. “We are now going to bring that experience into our work with the housing associations and give them better access to the data and make it look modern.”

Paloma has also accepted an offer from Blackberry, the company behind the Blackberry smartphone, to develop software for the housing association market – another reason to move into using Dot Net software.