Sycous has been with Anchor since 2015, providing our Mabdeck Software for metering and billing management across all their village developments.
Anchor are the UK’s largest not-for-profit provider of old people’s accommodation in the UK and now one of the leading providers of retirement villages. These villages allow for independent retirement living, with on-hand care facilities available if ever needed.
In 2018 and 2019, metering systems installed across all village development sites were replaced to allow improved data access for billing and efficiency monitoring. This meant moving away from the installed pulse system to an open protocol wired MBus solution. This new solution would allow for an additional interrogation of data, including temperature and flow rates, within the Mabdeck Software.
These upgrade projects were undertaken by Sycous and were managed by our in-house Project Delivery Team who liaised directly with each village team. The result has been an increased transparency of issues which could then be effectively resolved, improved reading rates of meters and accurate billing.
In 2018 Anchor Trust and Hanover Housing Association merged to become the largest provider of specialist housing and care for older people in England, with over 54,000 homes across more than 90% of local councils.
Sycous was then selected to provide ongoing services to metered properties across the newly formed group. It was also decided that due to the increased scope, all additional schemes would be delivered using the Sycous Managed Service solutions. This means that Sycous provide all metering data collection, validation, billing and payment collection services directly to residents on behalf of the Anchor Hanover Group.
Additionally, Sycous now provide service and repair solutions on a fixed cost, schedule-of-rate basis across the heat network Anchor Hanover portfolio. This utilises the nationwide team of Sycous experts who are on-hand to provide planned and responsive services, as well as carrying all necessary stock as part of their standard van stock.
This hybrid solution for both in-house and Managed Service solutions can easily be achieved with Sycous and has been demonstrated to be successful, ensuring flexibility to meet current and future customer requirements.
We work closely with the Anchor Hanover Group, providing integrated solutions for their own systems to be updated with information from Mabdeck. This proactive and technology led approach, supported with industry-leading hardware, has been recognised by Anchor who provided the following statement:
