1st Touch Unveils First Details Of V6 Digital & Mobile Platform Development

Version 6 is far and above anything the market has seen to date

1st Touch(www.1sttouch.com), the UK’s leading system innovator for the social housing sector, has unveiled details of its upcoming V6 Digital and Mobile Platform. Hailed as a major sea-change, the new version which is due out across Europe from Q4 2017, represents a multimillion-pound development investment by parent company Aareon. The new product is expected to drive market growth and to establish 1st Touch as the digital development platform of the group. The launch will be supported by a dynamic marketing and social media campaign.

The new V6 system will excel by delivering a complete digital transformation and mobile workforce ecosystem for the housing sector. With full SAAS (Software As A Service) functionality, V6 will allow social landlords of all sizes to access commonly used modules and forms in the Cloud. This will allow all the very latest best-practice modules and apps to be shared with subscribers and customers. More importantly it will also provide a marketplace for users, partners and third party vendors to trade and exchange relevant apps.

To position itself in preparation for the launch and greater European growth, 1st Touch is also aligning itself more closely within the Aareon Group structure. This much tighter internal integration reflects customer demand to have a single unified contact centre and administrative organisation. Focussing exclusively on digital and mobile development, 1st Touch will remain a separate legal entity within the group, whilst sharing a joint board strengthened by new executive appointments with Aareon UK from July 1st 2017.

As a result of the new alignment, clients will also now be able to plug in a range of digital solutions from the Aareon Group including: CRM, Contractor systems, ASB and Asset Management, whilst integrating just once with their Housing Management System. This will significantly reduce IT administration and maintenance for joint customers, whilst delivering further efficiencies through the digital solutions offered by the Group.

1st Touch’s Greg Johns believes that upcoming V6 launch and the new administrative alignment are both a tremendous opportunity to build on success and to drive growth. In his view, “Version 6 is an exciting development for both companies, as it recognises the tremendous market momentum of the 1st Touch brand to date and also provides a catalyst for sharing a strong management team going forwards. It also gives us access to highly skilled resources and significant facilities of the incredibly well funded Aareon organisation, part of Aareal Bank.

“Version 6 is far and above anything the market has seen to date and I am confident that it will soon establish itself as the de facto digital and mobile platform across the UK and Europe as a whole. I look forward to building on our success and seeing the brand go from strength to strength within the group.”

For his part Aareon’s MD Steve Makin noted, “1st Touch is widely acclaimed as the market leading brand in the UK’s digital and mobile social housing sector. Version 6 will reinforce this market leading position and establish the brand across the wider market and Europe. By integrating more closely with Aareon, 1st Touch is able to access considerably greater resources, share a winning management team and benefit from a new & efficient unified customer interface. By this means, we are combining a winning product with the very best support and resources available. I look forward to seeing the first fruits of this fusion from July the 1st onwards.”

Ends

Note to Editors: About 1st Touch (www.1sttouch.com)

Southampton based 1st Touch, a subsidiary of Aareon AG (www.aareon.com), has enabled dozens of field workforce-based organisations to embrace new mobile technologies and so achieve significant savings, greater productivity and more cost-effective use of resources. 1st Touch Mobile delivers clear and unique benefits: These include the system’s acclaimed ‘Smart Airtime’ feature where ‘airtime’ is minimised and the system is always available with or without ‘airtime’. The system’s flexibility through simple customer control over forms creation and amendment is also widely acclaimed. There is Integration to multiple back office and other enterprise software applications, so that data is entered only once.
With its widely acclaimed mobile technology, 1st Touch has a clear focus on the Social Housing and Local Government markets. Many social housing providers and local authorities, at large, now benefit from the fast and tangible, best of breed benefits that 1st Touch mobile technology delivers to the enterprise.
To date, over 50% of the social housing market, which has deployed mobile technology, has chosen to implement 1st Touch. In local government, 1st Touch has already been adopted for a wide range of mobile workforce uses. Ready to use applications for local authority organisations include: Public Buildings, Highways/Street Services, Environmental/Waste Management, Revenues and Benefits, together with Planning Control and Trading Standards.
1st Touch software is available on a wide variety of platforms including: Windows Mobile, Apple and Android.

About Aareon (www.aareon.com)

Aareon is the leading European Software Company providing IT solutions to the Social Housing Sector. With many years of industry specific knowledge, our position as a profitable, growing and innovative organisation enables us to set the standard for business processes in the housing sector both today and into the future. 
 
The Aareon Product Suite provides housing providers with an enterprise-wide solution.
 
Aareon QL Housing, Aareon QL Financials, Aareon QL CRM, Aareon QL Asset Management, Aareon QL Personnel & Payroll, Aareon 1st Touch Mobile, Aareon 360, Aareon QL Reporting Service, Aareon QL Task Centre Alerts & EDRM.

For further information on 1st Touch please contact:

Greg Johns
1st Touch
+44 (0) 871 716 3060
greg.johns@1sttouch.com
www.1sttouch.com

or

Leigh Richards
The Right Image PR & Marketing Group
07758 372527
leigh.richards@therightimage.co.uk
www.therightimage.co.uk