Riverside Housing has been in operation for over 80 years, and is one of the largest social landlords in the country. They are the largest provider of social housing in the UK, providing support and affordable housing to people across the whole of England. They manage approximately 50,000 affordable homes from Carlisle to Kent. Across the UK there are at least 100,000 people who live in a Riverside home.

The organisation’s vision is all about “transforming lives, revitalising neighbourhoods”. Riverside Housing has a formal commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility and they are committed to regenerating neighbourhoods to create a better quality of life for members of every community.

The Challenge
Riverside’s previous intranet was developed internally and had been in operation for five years as a content management storage area. Riverside decided that their system was outdated and needed to be restructured.

Selection Process
Riverside conducted a rigorous tender process to select a company to deliver their new intranet. In doing so, certain criteria needed to be met:-

• New intranet must integrate with existing IT systems
• Must offer flexibility
• Should adapt to existing and future business needs
• Must be competitively priced
• Must be implemented within specified timeframes

The Solution
After careful consideration, Riverside decided to choose SORCE.

SORCE were selected because:-

• Cost effective solution
• Extensive experience delivering housing intranet solutions
• Product offers standard applications
• Applications can be adapted for specific business needs
• Ability to offer a quick implementation

The Result
Since introducing the new intranet, Riverside is enjoying more efficiencies across the Group.

Richard Lyon, IT Project Manager said,
“SORCE has given us a user friendly intranet with numerous applications that can be adapted to suit the Group’s specific needs.”

Riverside have found the following key applications

particularly useful :-

• Document Management
• Contacts
• Forums

Having all documentation centrally located has meant that staff can quickly access all relevant information that they require and therefore provide a better service to tenants. The forums application has enabled remote workers to share information on key topics such as reducing rent arrears when addressing problem housing areas across the UK.

Future plans for Riverside’s intranet are to utilise SORCE applications to provide solutions in HR areas such as Accident Book, Expenses and online training.