Nicola Thomson

The Ultimate Guide to Building A Data Platform

Over 100+ pages packed with expert insights Accelerate your journey to valuable business insights, whether you’re building or buying. If you’re planning to build a modern data platform, this guide is your blueprint. It’s designed to help you navigate the critical architecture decisions, trade-offs, and tooling choices that will shape a scalable, secure, and future-ready…

Softcat expands to provide everything data with Oakland acquisition

Acquisition promises enhanced Data and AI solutions for Softcat’s customer base. After a long successful track record of organic growth, Softcat has today announced a significant step in its history with the acquisition of Oakland, a specialist data and AI consultancy. Data sits at the heart of everything in modern technology, and its importance is…

Leveraging Microsoft Azure for Market Expansion and Growth

Oakland was tasked with building a cloud-based data analytics platform designed to propel Emerald into the future. This platform needed to provide comprehensive data governance and quality functionality, reconciling conflicting data from diverse sources.

Why Is Data Important for Business?

Businesses rely on data to make informed decisions, measure performance, and drive continuous improvement. Whether it’s improving operational efficiency, shaping business strategies, or enhancing customer experiences, understanding and utilising data is key to long-term success. At Oakland, we believe that data is not just a useful tool but a critical element in every aspect of…

Target Operating Model: Delivering your Business Strategy

Chances are that your organisation’s operations are under constant pressure to stay competitive. At the heart of the transformation required to align your business operations and your business strategy successfully is the Target Operating Model (known as a TOM to its friends) – which is used as a strategic framework to describe your business capabilities…

Plugged In or Left Out? Navigating the Emerging Generative AI Gap

Generative AI is the buzzword of the moment. Attend any industry conference or skim through the latest Gartner hype cycle, and you’d be forgiven for thinking we’re on the cusp of a generative AI utopia. Everyone’s doing it. Everyone’s winning. Everyone’s transforming their businesses at warp speed.

Except, well… they’re not.

Here at Oakland, we’ve had some revealing conversations while compiling this report on the readiness of major organisations to implement generative AI. Spoiler alert: the reality isn’t quite keeping up with the hype.

Lessons Learned in Project Management: Purpose, Framework, Benefits & More

Lessons learned are a critical part of organisational self-improvement. If an organisation doesn’t understand its failings, it’s doomed to relive them. Understanding where things have gone wrong or misstepped is, therefore, crucial for any business to develop and grow – particularly those that work on a project-by-project basis. In this guide, we explore the concept…

A Guide to Knowledge Management Processes

In a world where information is at the heart of everything we do, managing knowledge effectively is more important than ever. Whether it’s making sure your teams can easily access critical information or capturing valuable insights from across your organisation, having a solid knowledge management process can make all the difference in how your business…

Knowledge Management Strategy: Purpose, Practice, Methods 

In business, knowledge is priceless. Yet, while most businesses generate huge volumes of knowledge, these documents are often left inaccessible in enormous, hard-to-navigate libraries – or hidden in the minds of talented staff. Reports, insights, policies, guidelines, correspondence, manuals: all unable to benefit the business simply and frustratingly due to the nature of how they…

What is Knowledge Management?

In today’s fast-paced world where information is constantly flowing, managing and using knowledge effectively can make or break a business.  Knowledge management is more than just storing documents; it’s about ensuring people have access to the right information at the right time. Whether it’s capturing the expertise of your employees, streamlining processes, or fostering innovation,…

A Guide to selecting the right Data Governance Tooling

How can Data Governance Tooling help me? 

The Data Governance landscape is constantly changing. As business direction shifts, data technologies advance and new regulations come into force – governance has to change with them. Delivering Data Governance at scale and keeping up is a constant challenge.  

Having the right tooling and technology to make sure data is in the hands of the right people has never been more essential. So, it’s no wonder that Data Governance tooling like Alation, Atlan, Collibra, Informatica, and Purview (just to name a few) has never been so popular. We can bet that you have not only heard of these names, but also you are probably on every salesperson’s speed dial. So why is Data Governance tooling so popular, and is it the silver bullet to fixing all of your Data Governance challenges?

Transforming Data Governance for a Major UK Utility

Our client, a prominent water supply and treatment utility company in the UK, boasts over 2,500 employees, a customer base of 5 million and impressive annual revenue of £1 billion. Servicing one of the largest counties, their operations faced challenges stemming from a complex data environment, hindering efficient operations and decision-making.