The Natural History Museum (NHM), a world-class UK attraction and research centre, has appointed Simpson Associates as a strategic supplier to deliver some key data and insight components of the Museum’s new Digital Twin Technology Vision. Simpsons Associates will help the Natural History Museum to transform existing data from disparate sources into coherent, visually immersive and intelligent insights, Simpsons will create a suite of Microsoft Power BI dashboards and unique new visualisation tools, to leverage intelligent insights to drive business success; speed up internal processes and upskill NHM staff in utilising Power BI.
The NHM is a world-class visitor attraction and leading science research centre, located in London. The Museum opened its doors in 1881, but the origins of its collection stretch way back to 1753. The museum was part of the British Museum with a legal separation in 1963 and officially changed its name in 1992 to the name that we all know today. NHM cares for more than 80 million specimens spanning billions of years and welcomes more than five million visitors annually. The Museum’s main purpose is to challenge the way people think about the natural world and transform the study of natural history, with an aim to stimulate public debate about humanity’s future by focussing on origins and evolution, diversity of life and ensuring a sustainable future.
The NHM recognises that today’s museums need to embrace technology (Data Digital IT) to create a sustainable future and it is undergoing an ambitious project to digitalise their internal processes and reporting and to create new innovative ways to protect and share their unique collections with visitors and the research community.
Ian Golding, Interim CIO at the Natural History Museum, commenting on building a strategic partnership:
“We are delighted to be working with Simpson Associates, who will work closely with us at the Natural History Museum to leverage our data to give us logical and intelligent insights for our Estate and Retail teams. The Museum is a large complex organisation with a lot of data sources including the 15,000 sensors used to manage the vast 100,000m2 estate and so it follows logically to use leading Microsoft Power BI capability to tell our story and run the Museum effectively based on data-fuelled insight. Simpson Associates and their team have been very engaging to understand the myriad challenges running the Estate, Retail operations as well as protecting the collection that relies on fine-tuned environmental conditions. This helps the Museum move towards the new ‘QED’ Question-based, Evidence-led, and Data-fuelled approach-“
Richard Hinton, Head of Enterprise Architecture & Planning, National History Museum said:
“Our aim is to add the value of analysis to our Retail and Estates departments by automating manual processes and harnessing those insights to make informed decisions that will ultimately benefit our visitors and employees, as well as protecting the Collection and the large estate. We are delighted to have the expertise of Simpson Associates on board and are looking forward to working with the team on further use cases to help the Museum realise its Digital Twin Technology Vision.”
Darren Moors, Commercial Director, Simpson Associates said:
“The Natural History Museum is looking to reduce its manual processes, improve productivity and to gain deeper and more profound analysis methods that can be shared throughout the organisation. The Museum already has a strategic relationship with Microsoft and given our Gold Partner status with Microsoft, Power BI is the natural path forward for NHM. As a Microsoft Gold Partner, Simpson Associates works with multiple organisations across many sectors and verticals, including higher education, manufacturing, blue lights and publishing & media, delivering Power BI Solutions to bring data to life with live dashboards and reports that can be used to share insights across the whole organisation. With our team of Power BI experts and the use of the Power BI tool, NHM will be able to turn unrelated sources of data into highly visual reports, providing a deeper level of understanding of their data, empowering them to develop intelligent insights. We are looking forward to working closely with the Natural History Museum and are extremely proud to be working with such a world-class organisation.”
About Simpson Associates
Simpson Associates is a data analytics company. Founded in 1991, their data and performance management solutions enable forward-thinking organisations understand and resolve some of the most complex and common challenges to deliver the best solutions to meet organisations individual business needs.
Simpsons have an extensive partner network As a Microsoft Gold Partner, they hold four Gold Competencies in Data and BI. Other partners include IBM Gold partner, a Board MIT Premier Partner, and an Information Builders Partner. This ecosystem of technology vendor relationships equips them with a deeper expertise to deliver the best solutions to meet individual business needs.
Simpson Associates build long term partnerships that challenge the status quo of traditional business relationships. To their customers, they are trusted advisors. They invest heavily in the training and development of a highly skilled and committed team who consistently strive for quality.