Insights
Practical writing on what our clients are actually dealing with: the reality behind the AI and regulatory headlines, why programmes drift, what independent judgement is worth, and how to make major change and sustainability reporting actually work. We publish when we have something useful to say, not to a calendar.
The United Kingdom is going through a demographic turn that will shape it for the rest of the century, and it begins with a single number: the…
The three parts of ESG, what it means in business and how it is reported in the UK.
What a finance ERP includes and the signs you have outgrown your accounting software.
How suppliers forecast half hour by half hour, and what MHHS changes.
BM Units, the balancing mechanism and how they drive settlement and imbalance.
HH metering, how to tell from your MPAN and who collects the data under MHHS.
What each of the 21 digits means and why the core MPAN matters.
What ECOES holds, who can use it and why its data quality matters.
Components, roles and a practical way to start data governance.
Priorities, regulation and delivery for banks, insurers and lenders.
Support models, hypercare and what to put in the support contract.
Projects, time, utilisation and billing for professional services ERP.
Formulas, batches, quality and GMP validation for process manufacturers.
Recipes, traceability, shelf life and compliance for food and drink ERP.
Capabilities, products and pitfalls for wholesale and distribution ERP.
When a small business needs ERP, the options and what it costs.
An independent shortlist of ERP products by business size and sector.
Licence prices for the main CRM platforms, implementation scope and running costs.
Prices, strengths and running costs of the three main CRM platforms.
S/4HANA and Oracle Fusion Cloud compared on fit, licensing and deployment.
RISE and GROW with SAP, FUE pricing and indicative programme costs.
Licence benchmarks, implementation bands and running costs.
Who each Sage product is for, indicative prices and when to move up.
The published starting price, what costs extra and how to budget for three years.
Design, multi entity, reporting, pricing and which suits which business.
Typical UK ranges for NetSuite licences, users, modules and implementation.
Published UK prices for Business Central, Finance, Supply Chain and Sales.
NAV support dates, the risks of staying and upgrade versus reimplementation.
UK licence prices for Essentials, Premium and Team Members, plus implementation costs.
What BSS and OSS do, how they fit together and where billing sits.
Advanced versus SMETS2 meters, rollout figures and what MHHS means for both.
Weightings, what evaluators look for and an answer structure that scores.
The 2026 thresholds, below threshold rules, the platform and social value.
Broker fees, complaints, deemed rates and compensation for business customers.
Residual network charges, the bands, the dates and what it means for your costs.
The 12 month limit, the exceptions, smart meters and the revenue at risk.
What Ofgem does, how it is set up and what the 2026 review proposes.
The four types, internal versus external, and how to manage them.
A seven step framework for a roadmap that gets funded and delivered.
How platforms create value, what they need and where it goes wrong.
The O2C cycle, the measures that matter and where cash gets stuck.
The P2P process step by step, the controls that matter and how to fix it.
The four functions, the generative AI profile and how it fits with ISO 42001.
Content versus action: the difference, examples and how to start safely.
Price, integration and data protection compared for business use.
Types of Copilot agent, how they are billed and the governance they need.
UK licence prices for Copilot, Copilot Business, Studio and Agent 365, plus the hidden costs.
The difference, the standards behind each claim and the UK green claims rules.
GRI, ISSB, UK SRS, ESRS, TCFD and CDP: what each is for and which you need.
How science based targets work, the V2 standard dates, rules and fees.
How the EU and UK carbon border charges work, what is covered and who pays.
Who is in scope after the 2026 cuts, what it requires and the new dates.
Who qualifies, the Phase 4 dates, what the audit requires and the penalties.
How emissions are measured, which UK rules apply to whom and how to make the numbers stand up.
What each scope covers, the fifteen scope 3 categories and which UK rules ask for them.
What hypercare covers, how long it lasts and when to exit.
What UAT is, where it fits, who runs it and how to sign it off.
What consultants actually do, how they charge and how to get value from them.
The process, the main models and what good looks like, in plain English.
Project, programme and portfolio offices, what they do and what good looks like.
Back office vs front office, where they overlap, and which to put in first.
What an ERP system does, typical modules, benefits, costs and when you need one.
The chain from meter to bill, why accounts stop billing, what smart meters and MHHS change and what a well run billing operation looks like.
Three to five use cases, honest data and people, money and dates, and a ninety day plan, in a few pages rather than forty slides.
The six parts of a workable operating model, how a target operating model differs from the current state and a free template.
The extraterritorial reach, the risk tiers, the agreed 2027 and 2028 dates and what UK deployers and providers should do now.
What the standard contains, what certification costs and takes, when to certify rather than align and how it fits with the EU AI Act.
The twelve standards, how double materiality decides which apply and what the Omnibus simplification changes.
What the VSME is, the basic and comprehensive modules, why UK SMEs are being asked for it and what it takes to produce.
The six phases, how long each takes, the client side checklist for every gate and the three mistakes that undo good plans.
The cost of the current state, the seven cost lines most cases miss, benefits with owners and how to keep the case alive.
What a manufacturing ERP has to do, how the main platforms compare, what it costs and how to choose without being sold to.
Job costing, applications, CIS and retentions, how the specialist and general platforms compare and where construction implementations fail.
The eight things the phrase actually covers, the four types of provider, UK costs, where programmes fail and the questions to ask before you sign.
SECR, climate disclosures, CSRD and UK SRS, what is mandatory and what is merely expected, and how to run one reporting operation instead of four.
The four jobs inside the phrase, the types of consultant, what the work costs in the UK, where AI projects fail and six questions to ask first.
What Kraken is, who runs on it, what it does differently and what a migration onto it really involves, from people who have led several.
The seven things that have to exist for AI governance to be real, the UK and EU rules it has to satisfy and a ninety day plan to put it in place.
Who is regulated from January 2026, what changes for bills and complaints, and six things to check in your billing agent contract.
Most boards we meet are not behind on AI. They are lost in it, and the two are not the same thing. Here is the order we use with clients, from the fifteen or so AI programmes…
A publicly owned grid company is a good headline. Delivering one is a programme, and the programmes that look most like it have lessons the new company would do well to borrow.
Kraken is now central to Australian energy and the migrations onto it are multiplying. The UK went first and hit the walls first, so the lessons from those programmes are worth…
Moving billions to the public is a control problem, not a generosity problem. Here is how to design and run a large support scheme that reaches the right people and stands up…
CSRD is sold as a reporting exercise, but the real work is scope, data and assurance. Here is what getting ready actually involves, in plain terms.
Most programmes fail quietly, not loudly, and by the time it is obvious the options have narrowed. Here is how to recover one, from someone who has done it.
Choosing an ERP is one of the most expensive decisions a business makes, and most selections are shaped by the vendors rather than the buyer. Here is how to run a selection…
Reverse migration is the safety valve that lets a meter point return to the old settlement regime if a migration goes wrong. It does not last. On 28 October 2026 it closes, and…
A working checklist for the hundred days after completion, from someone who has bought, built, sold and separated businesses. Print it, argue with it, and assign a name to…
Mainstream maintenance for SAP ECC ends in 2027, with paid extensions to 2030. Every published guide to this deadline is written by someone selling a migration. This one is…
Every published comparison of utility platforms is written by a vendor or generated by a machine. This one is written by someone who has run SAP and Microsoft estates and led…
The famous statistic says most ERP programmes fail. The famous statistic is also mostly quoted by people selling the cure. Here is what actually goes wrong, written by someone…
Vendor timelines are sales documents. Here is what actually drives ERP duration, what compresses, and what never does, from delivery experience at global scale.
Most published answers to this question come from companies selling the software. This one comes from someone who has owned a global ERP and Microsoft Dynamics 365 estate worth…
The deal creates the value on paper. The first hundred days decide whether you keep it. A practical guide from someone who has bought, built, sold and separated businesses, not…
Most ERP programmes do not fail at go live. They fail quietly, months earlier, while the status reports are still green. Here is how to recognise a programme in trouble and how…
A client side guide to billing and CIS migration for energy and water companies, from the team that led the first ever water migration onto the Kraken platform.
The SAP IS U deadline, MHHS and the Irish market changes, and what applies to whom.
The targets, where the EPA says Ireland will land, PR6 grid investment and Northern Ireland.
Where the rollout stands, how smart and dynamic tariffs work, and what changes for suppliers.
The SEM, the regulators, ESB Networks, MRSO and RMDS, switching and settlement.
The 11 digit number behind every Irish electricity connection, and how it differs from a GPRN and an MPAN.
How export payments work, how rates are set, the NC6 form and what it means for suppliers.
The UK’s April 2029 mandate, Ireland’s phases from November 2028 and what your ERP must do.
The real SAP IS U dates for 2027, 2030 and 2033, whether you must go SaaS, and what the deadline means in Ireland.
Choosing the right partner for a major transformation is one of the highest stakes decisions a leadership team makes. The wrong choice does not…
Target operating model is one of the most used and least understood phrases in business. Everyone agrees they need one, and few agree on what it…
Most large transformation programmes get into trouble at some point. The ones that end well are not the ones that never wobble, they are the…
Rolling out anything across hundreds of sites, whether new technology, a refit, a piece of equipment or a new way of working, is deceptively…
Electrifying a vehicle fleet is one of the biggest operational changes many organisations will make this decade. It is often pitched as simply…
An electric vehicle charging rollout looks like a hardware problem and is really a delivery problem. The chargers are the easy part. The hard…
Large transformation programmes fail far more often than the businesses starting them expect. The pattern is so consistent that it is almost a…
The UK does not have a single skills gap. It has several, and they are far deeper in some sectors than others. Using the government Employer…
Finance transformation is one of those phrases that means everything and nothing. Used well, it describes the work of turning a finance function…
When a business is carved out of a larger group, the seller usually keeps providing some services for a while under a transitional service…
A carve out is one of the hardest moves in private equity. You are taking a business unit that has always relied on a parent for systems, data,…
Market wide half hourly settlement, known as MHHS, is the biggest change to the electricity retail market in a generation. It moves every…
Imbalance is one of the least understood ways that an energy supplier loses money. It rarely shows up as a single large invoice. Instead it…
Kraken has become one of the most talked about platforms in the utilities world, and for good reason. It now serves tens of millions of customer…
Preparing a business for sale used to mean getting the financials, the operations and the commercial story in order. It now includes…
The value in an acquisition is captured or lost early. The first hundred days set the tone, establish momentum or the lack of it, and determine…
Financial due diligence tells an investor what the numbers say. It does not tell them whether the business behind the numbers can actually…
A growing number of UK groups face both the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, through their European entities, and the…
Climate transition plans are becoming a reporting expectation, and there is a risk that they become a disclosure exercise: a document written to…
The most underestimated fact in sustainability reporting is that the numbers now have to be assured. Under the European standards, and…
Few programmes overrun as reliably as telecoms BSS and OSS transformations. Replacing the billing, charging, order management and provisioning…
Most of the public conversation about the energy transition is about policy, targets and ambition. Inside the organisations that have to deliver…
RIIO-ED3, the next price control for Great Britain’s electricity distribution networks, is still being shaped. Ofgem’s sector…
When an organisation needs stronger programme control, it faces a choice: build the programme management office internally, or bring one in.…
When a systems integrator delivers your programme, it will usually offer its own quality assurance as part of the package. It sounds efficient,…
One decision shapes the cost of an ERP platform for its entire life more than any other: how much you build and customise versus how much you…
The instinct when a system becomes painful is to replace it, and replacement is often the most expensive, most disruptive and most risky option…
Independent assurance is most valuable when it changes an outcome, which means timing is everything. Commissioned at the right moment it can…
The sponsor is the single most important role in a major programme and the least well understood. A strong sponsor materially improves the odds…
Most people who receive programme status reports read them for what they say. The skill worth developing is reading them for what they conceal.…
A board is accountable for the major programmes its organisation runs, but board members are rarely delivery experts, and the reporting they…
With the RIIO-3 Final Determinations published and the price control running from 2026 to 2031, the phase that consumed everyone’s…
The UK now has its own sustainability reporting standards. The government published the UK Sustainability Reporting Standards, S1 and S2, in…
Every ERP vendor and every large integrator is now selling AI, and the volume of it makes calm judgement hard. As an independent firm with no…
Some of the hardest programmes in the energy sector are the ones no single organisation controls. Market wide changes, the kind delivered…
Boards commission independent assurance reviews because they need to know whether a major programme will deliver, from someone who does not have…
Ask anyone who has delivered an ERP programme what nearly derailed it and the answer is usually data. It is the most reliable predictor of…
Nobody wants to give a straight answer to this, and there is a reason: the honest answer is that it depends, and the range is enormous. But…
The EU Omnibus simplification package did two things to CSRD: it narrowed who is in scope, and it moved when they report. If you built a plan…
Ask three providers what a double materiality assessment costs and you will get three very different numbers, sometimes an order of magnitude…
If you run a UK group with operations in Europe, you are watching two reporting regimes develop in parallel and wondering how much of your…
Double materiality assessment is the foundation of sustainability reporting under the European Sustainability Reporting Standards. It determines…
We are usually called in at the point where a programme has just turned red, and almost every time the same thing is true: it had been in…
This is the question we are asked more than any other, and for most of the last two years the honest answer was that it depended on rules that…
Reading is one thing, delivery is another. If any of this is live for you right now, the senior people who wrote it are the people you would work with.