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Friday 20 May 2022

You beauty! Network Rail takes on cosmetics giant and tech pioneers at British Data Awards and comes up looking rosy

Region & Route:

Wales & Western: Western

| Wales & Western

Last night (Thursday 19 May) a team from Network Rail won the BI (Business Intelligence) Solution of the Year category at the British Data Awards, beating tough competition from Hitachi Solutions, No7 Beauty Company (Walgreens Boots Alliance), ThoughtSpot and Transforming Systems.

The Controls and Analytics team from Network Rail’s Wales and Western region took home the BI Solution award for their innovative approach to project data analytics. The team developed a system using PowerBI and Python which provides colleagues with visually immersive and interactive insights into projects. 

This uses data from existing corporate finance, risk and programming systems to produce information-packed dashboards for all project teams, in one place. Producing the information in this way is more efficient and streamlined while allowing for simple and effective insights to inform business decisions.

The British Data Awards are held annually to celebrate organisations that are passionate about data, no matter their size, with firms taking part including FTSE 100 giants, tech unicorns, innovative start-ups, public sector bodies, not-for-profit organisations and everything in between. This year there were a record 158 entries.

Collecting the award at last night’s ceremony, held at the Landsdowne Club in Mayfair, were Yamini Kumar, Pragya Raina, Milla Mazilu and Steve Naybour on behalf of Network Rail.

Stuart Calvert, Network Rail’s Capital Delivery director, said: “Winning this award is a great recognition of the team’s achievement. They have transformed how we use our data to produce brilliant management information to help us make better decisions.”

Jason Johnson, co-founder of Predatech and British Data Awards judge said: “I’d like to extend my congratulations to all of our 2022 Winners. With 158 entries received this year, being named a Finalist let alone a Winner really is a great achievement. I hope that all the people and organisations taking part this year feel immensely proud to be recognised for their data success stories on a national stage.”