Aiimi wins place on £24m utilities data and digital framework

Aiimi, the creative technology company specialising in data and information, has won a place on the Anglian Water Data and Digital Services Framework, which is worth £24 million over eight years. 

The wide-ranging framework seeks to put in place appropriately skilled external resources to work collaboratively within multi-party and multi-disciplinary teams. These will work across a number of different areas – from design sprints, hackathons, and UX and UI design to API design, delivery and management, data quality assurance, and augmented data management.

The Anglian Water framework consists of Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers, which will be used to support and enhance the company’s in-house capabilities. The initial contract term is four years, with a further extension option of up to four years.

Aiimi’s appointment to the Data and Digital Services Framework builds on a successful six-year relationship, with a team of 30 from Aiimi working at the heart of the business to drive data and digital capabilities. This work recently resulted in two industry award shortlists – for Alliancing & Partnership Initiative of the Year at the 2020 Water Industry Awards, and for Customer Initiative of the Year at the Water & Wastewater Treatment (WWT) Water Industry Awards.

Aiimi has led Anglian Water through an essential Enterprise Information Management strategy which comprised data, content, business intelligence analytics, and mobile strategies. These strategies are being used to drive significant investments in technology, information, and people capabilities as well as underpin a business and operating model change. 

Melissa Tallack, Head of Data and Digital Services at Anglian Water, said: “The team from Aiimi are undeniably at the heart of how we've driven data and digital capabilities. With Aiimi, the quality of our data strategy – in particular its foresight and progressive data principles and capabilities – means that even six years on, the work remains incredibly relevant to Anglian Water. This is why we are delighted to continue that journey together through the new Data and Digital Services Framework.”

Since January 2018, Anglian Water has also been a key technology research and development partner, helping Aiimi to shape and develop its new Insight Engine. Powered by AI, the Aiimi Insight Engine interconnects all information across the enterprise, creating a data mesh and providing a comprehensive picture of a business’ data universe. Using the Insight Engine, organisations can discover and connect everything, uncovering brand-new actionable insights to help them achieve crucial business goals – from managing information risk, to migrating data, to kick-starting data science.

Aiimi’s services and the Aiimi Insight Engine will be leveraged by Anglian Water to achieve its AMP7 business objectives, with AI to be used to improve asset performance, customer information, leakage management, and overall efficiency. Anglian Water’s AMP7 business objectives include serving 175,000 new homes, a delivering a 16 percent reduction in leakage, and significantly reducing Anglian Water’s environmental impact by reducing the amount of water it takes from the environment by 84 million litres a day between now and 2025. 

Steve Salvin, CEO at Aiimi, said: “This is a massive win for us and is a realisation of the value we provide for Anglian Water. Through these close ties, we have developed a deep understanding of Anglian Water’s needs – not just from a data and technology perspective, but crucially from a people perspective by embedding teams in their business. For Anglian Water, we are not just an external delivery partner; we really care about what they need to achieve and are excited to continue to support them through to the end of the current asset management plan period in 2025 – and hopefully beyond.”