Calderbrook Housing Group / BG-Demo – QBR
Callcompleted
Calderbrook Housing Group · 10 Mar 2026 16:45
QBR on 10 Mar 2026: Craig Oduya, Director of Digital and Data, said every contract is under review for an in-house platform and asked for the exit position. Helen Marsden's board pack figures do not reconcile.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026QBR on 10 Mar 2026: Craig Oduya, Director of Digital and Data, said every contract is under review for an in-house platform and asked for the exit position. Helen Marsden's board pack figures do not reconcile.
What happened: Amara Obi, the new CSM, ran the QBR with Sofia Marchetti. Helen Marsden's repairs and arrears figures in the board pack do not match the housing and finance systems.
Customer view: Craig Oduya said the mandate is to consolidate onto an in-house platform on the Microsoft estate. He asked for the exit position on derived data and said he was not signalling a decision.
Commercial: Growth at £44k a year, term to 1 Sep 2026, renewal 2 Sep 2026. About six of forty licensed users are active, and staff have stopped learning the brain because a different platform was announced.
Watch: Sofia committed to a written exit note and Amara to a month-end walkthrough. The evidence does not show the renewal outcome.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
In-house platform and exit
Importance
churn
Sentiment
negative
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Sofia Marchetti sends a written exit note to Craig Oduya and Helen Marsden within a week of the call.
- Amara Obi walks Helen through one month's repairs and arrears figures, source to pack, and confirms in writing.
- Amara sends a usage summary by person and schedules the next QBR once the reconciliation is done.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- The Director of Digital and Data is building an in-house platform and reviewing every contract, including the Growth subscription.
- Only about six of forty licensed users are active, and staff have stopped investing in the brain.
- The board pack repairs and arrears figures remain unreconciled, so trust in the brain's numbers is at stake.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A traced, written reconciliation of the month-end figures would restore Helen Marsden's confidence before any decision.
- Forty licensed seats leave room to bring arrears and complaints users into the brain if the account is retained.
Transcript
Amara ObiHello? Can you hear me alright? I think the recording has just started.
Helen MarsdenYes, I can hear you. Good afternoon. Is it just us for now?- Amara ObiSofia's joining in a second, she's finishing another call. And Craig, I think?
- Helen MarsdenCraig said he'd be a few minutes late. Back to back, as usual. Honestly it's been that sort of week.
Sofia MarchettiSorry, sorry. Good afternoon, both. I'm here. Can you hear me?- Amara ObiLoud and clear. Right, let me introduce myself properly, Helen, because we've only swapped emails. I'm Amara, I'm the Customer Success Manager for Calderbrook now. I've picked the account up recently, so I won't pretend I've been in the room for the earlier conversations. I've read everything, but you know the history far better than me.
- Helen MarsdenThat's fair, and thank you for saying so. You're not the first, as you'll have seen.
- Amara ObiI did see. So before I share anything, can I ask what good looks like for you this quarter? Then I'll show you the numbers against that.
- Helen MarsdenGood looks like the board pack reconciling. That's the discrepancy I'm chasing. The repairs figures in the pack, the completed repairs in the performance section, they don't reconcile to what the housing management system gives us. We're out by a margin that the board will ask about, and I can't put my name to it.
- Amara ObiOkay. Is that the brain's figure that's out, or the pack's figure?
- Helen MarsdenThat's rather the question. The pack takes the number from the brain. The housing system says something different. Can you show me the source?
- Sofia MarchettiHelen, let me say first that I understand why this matters. A figure going to the board that you can't trace is not acceptable, and I don't want it to sit as a footnote on a review call. Let's be clear about what we know and what we don't yet.
- Helen MarsdenThank you. That's all I'm asking for.
- Amara ObiLet me share my screen. Can you see it? It's the usage page.
- Helen MarsdenYes. Slightly small, but I can see it.
- Amara ObiI'll make it bigger. So here's what the numbers say. You're on Growth, forty licensed users. Over the last month, about six of those people were active on average. And that's down a little on the previous quarter.
- Helen MarsdenSix. Yes. That'll be my team, mostly, and one or two in the repairs service.
- Amara ObiThat's what I'd guess from the names. So who else should have access? Because forty seats and six people is a lot of headroom, and I'd rather the people who need the arrears and complaints views had them.
- Helen MarsdenHonestly, there's been a reluctance. People were told a different platform is coming, so they've stopped investing in learning this one. I'd be misleading you if I said otherwise.
- Amara ObiThanks, that's helpful to hear plainly. On support, there have been three tickets in the last month, none of them high priority, and nothing overdue on the invoicing side. So the service itself looks quiet. But quiet isn't the same as healthy, and I'm not going to wave the usage drop through.
- Sofia MarchettiAgreed. And on the tickets, Helen, one of those is yours about the repairs count, correct?
- Helen MarsdenYes. And the answer I got was that the figure was working as designed. That isn't an answer. It's a description.
- Sofia MarchettiYou're right. I own this. We'll go through it with the figures, not with a sentence.
Craig OduyaApologies, apologies. Craig Oduya. Can you hear me? I had a supplier call overrun.- Amara ObiHi Craig, we can. Good to meet you properly. I'm Amara, the CSM. Sofia you know.
- Craig OduyaSofia, yes. Good afternoon. Before we go further, can I set out where we are, so we're all working from the same picture?
- Amara ObiPlease do.
- Craig OduyaSince I joined in November the mandate has been clear. We consolidate our data onto one platform, built in-house, on the Microsoft estate we already own. Fewer suppliers, clearer ownership. Every contract is being reviewed against the platform strategy. That includes this one. It's nothing personal about BG-Demo.
- Sofia MarchettiThank you for being direct about it, Craig. We'd rather hear that than guess.
- Craig OduyaGood. So the team is building that capability in-house. And that raises a practical point I'd like answered today.
- Amara ObiGo ahead.
- Craig OduyaWhat's our exit position? Specifically, the derived data. The joined-up tables, the models, whatever the brain has built from our sources. If we wanted to take that out, how would we export it?
- Helen MarsdenCraig, if I may, the reason I'd want that is the reconciliation as well. If I can see the derived tables, I can trace the figure myself.
- Craig OduyaBoth. Yes.
- Amara ObiOkay. So I want to be careful here and give you the right answer, not a fast one. What I know is the brain is built and run inside your own Snowflake account. So the derived data isn't sitting with us, it's in your account, under your control.
- Craig OduyaUnderstood. And that's in the contract?
- Amara ObiI'd want to check the exact wording in the order form before I say yes to that, rather than quote it from memory. Sofia?
- Sofia MarchettiHere is what we will do. We'll send you a written exit note. It will say what lives in your Snowflake account, what you can take out directly, and what, if anything, is specific to the brain's own pages and saved views and how those can be exported. I won't improvise that on a call, because you'll want it in writing and so will your legal team.
- Craig OduyaThat's sensible. I'd also want to know whether anything stops working in our account if the subscription ends.
- Sofia MarchettiThat's a fair question and it goes in the note. I'd rather answer it exactly than guess.
- Craig OduyaFine. Let me be clear, I'm not signalling a decision. I'm asking what the position would be.
- Helen MarsdenCan I come back to the arrears? Because the same issue applies there. The arrears section of the board pack takes a total from the brain and it's off against the finance system. I've got both numbers here.
- Amara ObiSure. Is it a gap that's the same every month, or does it move?
- Helen MarsdenIt moves. It's worse at month end. Which makes me think timing, but I can't prove that.
- Amara ObiThat's a useful clue. The nightly refresh should be complete by seven in the morning on business days, so month-end positions posted late in the day could land a day behind. I'm not saying that's it. But it's the first thing I'd test.
- Helen MarsdenThat would at least be an explanation with a reason. I could take that to the board.
- Sofia MarchettiWe'll test it properly. Amara will walk through one month's figures with you line by line, source to pack, and we'll put the answer in writing. If it's us, we say it's us.
- Craig OduyaI'd like to see that too, once it's done. Helen's credibility with the board matters whatever we decide about the platform.
- Helen MarsdenThank you, Craig.
- Amara ObiCan I raise the commercial side briefly, so nobody's surprised later? You're at forty-four thousand a year on Growth, order form and invoices agree, and the term runs to 1 Sep 2026.
- Craig OduyaWhich makes the renewal 2 Sep 2026, I assume.
- Amara ObiThat's the date we have, yes. And as the CSM I'll be coming to you well ahead of it with the formal notice. I'm not asking for anything today.
- Craig OduyaGood. Because I won't be committing to anything on that today.
- Sofia MarchettiUnderstood, and we're not asking you to. What I'd say is that if the in-house build is the direction, the sensible thing for both sides is to know what's useful in the meantime, so that nothing the board relies on goes dark.
- Craig OduyaThat's reasonable. The board pack is the dependency I'd worry about.
- Helen MarsdenIt is mine as well. So I'd ask, whichever way it goes, that we get the reconciliation done first.
- Amara ObiAgreed. That's the first thing in the diary. Let me say what I'll send. One, a usage summary with the charts from today, by person, so you can see who's asking the questions. Two, the month-end walkthrough for the repairs and arrears figures. And I'll set a date for that with Helen this week.
- Helen MarsdenTomorrow or Thursday would suit. I'll check my calendar and reply.
- Sofia MarchettiAnd from me, the written exit note, to Craig and Helen both, within the next week. I'll send it myself.
- Craig OduyaThank you. Copy my team's data lead as well, please. Helen can give you the address.
- Helen MarsdenI will.
- Amara ObiLovely. Anything else before we stop? Otherwise I'll get the next QBR in the diary once the reconciliation's done.
- Craig OduyaNothing from me. Thanks, all. Appreciated.
- Helen MarsdenNothing else. Thank you, Sofia, Amara. Speak soon.
- Sofia MarchettiThank you both. Best regards. Speak soon.
- Amara ObiBye for now.
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