Best New Consultancy
Anmut is a pioneering advisory services and product business, focused on strategic data asset management. Founded in 2018 by Herman Heyns and Professor Andy Neely, Anmut supports organisations to turn their data from a “black hole” and “sunk cost”, into a valuable asset, capable of unlocking better outcomes for all stakeholders, including shareholders.
The problem Anmut solves is that, despite exponential growth in data and billions invested worldwide every year in technology to run businesses and public services, leaders still report a huge gap between the comprehensiveness of the data they have and the data they need to execute their strategies.
With the accelerating digitisation of business operating models, turbo-charged by the widespread application of artificial intelligence, organisations need a systematic approach to identify, measure and manage the data they depend on to achieve their goals.
Like any asset, data requires disciplines and tools to manage it, which until very recently did not exist. Over the last five years, Anmut has invested heavily in researching and developing a new management science for measuring the value and fitness for purpose of data.
In a world first, we developed an enterprise-wide data valuation method for National Highways’ Chief Data Officer, Davin Crowley-Sweet. As Davin describes, “we estimated the value of our data to be £60 billion, equivalent to half the value of the tangible assets on the balance sheet, and 15 times more valuable than the systems that store our data.”
Davin needed to prove to the business the investments and changes to ways of working needed to make data fit for purpose were worth it. A new language was needed from the board level down to frontline operations to communicate the value of National Highway’s data. This was about cultural change as much as instilling data management disciplines.
Our work identified £1.2 million in business efficiencies related to its data “black hole,” dwarfing the spend on the data valuation project. While another data valuation insight led to £20 million in savings from a £300,000 investment in optimised maintenance interventions.
National Highways is not a one-off. We are currently working with a large professional services firm, a luxury automotive manufacturer and other public sector organisations. Through this work, we know all sectors can benefit from our methods, especially organisations that were not born digital natives, many of which provide essential public utilities.
Our co-founder and former CEO passionately believed that data has the power to change the world for the better. His sudden death at the start of 2023 shook the organisation, but one year on we are continuing his legacy and are on track to grow 20% year on year, for the third successive year. In line with his and our multi-stakeholder ethos, we continue to offer all our employees the opportunity to take an equity stake in the business, enabling them to benefit financially from the organisation they have helped to create.
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