During the past few months, I have had the privilege of working with some our most technologically gifted homeowners as part of our Tech interest group. As a group we have been unravelling all the technological pressure points that feed into our wonderful community. Without a doubt, this is a most complex industry and in order to get our plans right, we have taken our time.
In brief, we would like to update our community on the progress and our planned way forward.
After engaging with some of the HODs within our businesses, Nicolas Links – IT Manager and I have taken the group through all the various systems that we use within our Estate and Country Club. We have, with the assistance of Justin Clarke – Chairman of the Board and Malcolm Samuel Estate General Manager expanded on the full vision of 2025 and Simbithi Go Green projects. All this to allow the group to broaden their understanding of our business as it was yesterday, as it is today and as it will be tomorrow.
We were fortunate enough to allow various stakeholders the opportunity to present their company products, together with their future road maps, once again to allow the group the opportunity to understand some of what is currently available. These stakeholders included our previous Estate Management system designer, our current Estate Management system designer, a neighbouring estate’s system designer as well as Steyn City’s Estate Management System designer.
As a direct outcome of these engagements, as a group it was decided that design best practise should be followed. This would entail engaging with a Business Analyst, to draft a complete functional specification document. Not only will this give us an objective way to assess all the solutions available to the Estate, but it would also allow us to map our processes with business automation and future development (2025/Go Green) in mind.
Suitable Business Analysts were sought, interviewed and given an opportunity to provide examples of their specification documentation. From this, the group has elected to make use of a business analyst who has recently conducted a similar exercise at Mt Edgecombe Estate and is currently implementing a proof of concept at Zimbali.
The timelines envisaged for the completion of our functional specifications were initially set for the end of March, however with increasing travel bans and face to face meetings being discouraged we hope that this doesn’t push our project back too far.
Whilst we fully appreciate that our current systems are not at our Simbithi standard, we are mindful of the cost and effort it would take to roll back to any legacy system or to implement any new system in the short term, and therefore felt it most prudent to continue with the status quo, whilst fast tracking the outlined process.
We are excited about the future technology available to us, all that we need to ensure is that Simbithi objectively selects the absolute best in class solution for the benefit of all our valued residents.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, stay safe.
Marc Mc Clure
Finance Manager | fm@simbithi.com
Date: 20.03.2020
