Breaking silos without breaking boundaries
Unlocking the commercial potential of AI-powered knowledge sharing, built around Hatmill’s culture.
Governance & Compliance: Data governance | Information governance | Policies & controls design
Data & Information: Data strategy | Data management | Information management
Technology & AI: AI readiness | AI governance | Technology roadmapping
Operating Model & Adoption: Ways of working | Operating principles | Process design
Delivery
Fractional CDO
Background
Independent, employee-owned UK supply chain and logistics consultancy, Hatmill has 50+ consultants who work remotely with a high degree of autonomy, central to its culture.
When Hatmill began exploring AI, it recognised the need to strengthen its existing data and information governance for human access to create the foundations for safe, effective and successful AI implementation, while supporting its unique operating culture.
That meant it needed a highly refined and nuanced approach to governance.
Approach
AIK Advisory worked with Hatmill to turn its ambition for AI into a practical programme addressing commercial opportunity alongside governance, legal, cultural and technical implications.
AIK Advisory needed to:
Enable: focus on commercial value and realise AI-driven knowledge sharing benefits
Explored 125+ potential AI use cases
Prioritised into around ten areas
Incorporate 400+ SharePoint sites
Accommodate differently structured information
Protect: client confidentiality and Hatmill’s operating culture simultaneously
Preserve client boundaries between consultants
Support AI implementation in ways that work for Hatmill
Target operating model, data strategies, policies, governance
Clear control over what can be included
Navigate: competing cultural, commercial, legal and technical priorities
Understand the unique nuance of Hatmill’s processes, considering matters such as IP ownership and document sources
Turn business objectives, contractual parameters, information consistency, legal and contractual requirements and proportionate governance requirements into technical specifications
Translate technical implications back into business choices with a clear understanding of trade-offs
Interpreting strategic, cultural, legal and governance decisions to establish how they should work in practice
Embed: translate those business choices into everyday behaviour with a highly workable technical solution
Translating strategic decisions into the taxonomy, metadata and information classification needed to structure the knowledge hub
Working with the technical specialists responsible for implementation
Delivering a pilot to test the approach, identify practical issues and refine permissions, taxonomy, legal evidence and working practices.
Maintaining autonomy without unnecessary overhead.
Outcome
What began as an exploration of AI has become a practical exercise in how Hatmill can evolve to take advantage of new technology, maintain and build its commercial edge, and remain a business where people have the autonomy and freedom they value.
From possibility to commercial priorities
Where to focus investment
What changes were needed across data, governance, technology and ways of working.
A responsible route to greater knowledge sharing
A clear basis for how knowledge can be used across Hatmill
A robust foundation to pursue AI opportunities
Proportionate governance
A clearer view of the business operating model AI requires
A tangible understanding of what AI transformation means for Hatmill
Questions about information structures, contracts, working practices, governance and culture brought into focus
A clear approach to AI ethics and use policy, continually tested and refined as new use cases are integrated into day-to-day consultancy
AIK Advisory’s relationship with Hatmill also broadened to include a DATA Health assessment and wider strategic support.
“Alan has helped us work through some genuinely complex questions around AI, knowledge sharing and client information governance, while always keeping sight of the culture we want to maintain and what we’re trying to achieve commercially.”
Andy Wood, Consultant, Hatmill
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