Simplified
data governance and compliance
Stronger
protection with AI-powered lineage
Unified
framework for data sources and apps
Partners
Pinder Johal: We are a large global professional services company. We specialize in engineering, construction, water. You name it, we do it. We've been around for almost 100 years.
Sarah Choi: We deal with, the world's most challenging, projects in water, energy and, environmental. The whole industry has been changing, primarily because of our clients' increasing demand in having data driven decision making.
Pinder Johal: We have a huge ambition around AI. But our CIO understood the importance of having data management in place. In order to be good at AI, you've got to have your foundations in place.
Pinder Johal: I think that's the beauty that Informatica brings. Having a one stop shop for data management just makes it so much easier and so much interoperable. There's multiple components and modules that serve you from a data quality perspective, or if it's lineage or if you're doing observability, even sort of integration. It's just seamless.
Sarah Choi: Microsoft is our key cloud provider when we implement Informatica, that gave us a lot of the capability to be able to integrate with Microsoft Azure.
Pinder Johal: Applications like Salesforce, Oracle, there are connectors that very simply a click of a button can harvest metadata. And through that we're able again a click of a button to profile that data and understand exactly what the anomalies are. Lineage has also been a powerful tool as well. So understanding the source of where the data came from, what transformations have applied to it, and then how it ends up in a Power BI report again, sort of usually end to end. I don't think we could ever demonstrate that before in one single place.
Sarah Choi: Data quality is automated. Data lineage is there. So all that is powered by CLAIRE, the AI engine behind the scene.
Pinder Johal: Using AI in CLAIRE where it saw something like email address or date of birth, the application was able to very simply sort of tag and classify that dangerous PII, whereas previously, again, you'd have to write bespoke rules, to interrogate your source systems.
Pinder Johal: I call it data therapy. It's really important to listen to your stakeholders. Don't just come to them with a full-blown strategy. Understand what their pain points and ambitions around data are.
Sarah Choi: We set up the metadata, set up the catalog, all the capability that they can use today... that gives the business the confidence that these are not just data, but is the data that are governed in every single step. And that is a game changer.
An engineering leader rebuilds its data footprint
For nearly a century, GHD has been shaping the world's infrastructure, providing engineering and design services for major construction, water, energy, transportation and environmental projects. "Client centricity, safety and doing the right thing for communities is of paramount importance," says Bhupinder Johal (Pinder), GHD's Data Management Office Leader. “We help our clients build critical infrastructure, so we have to ensure that our data is high quality, trusted, understood and locally compliant."
With mounting cost pressures and technological disruption, even a firm with GHD’s impressive heritage faces challenges. GHD’s network includes over 12,000 professionals across 160 offices located on five continents. "The whole industry has been changing, primarily because of clients' increasing demand for data-driven decision-making," explains Sarah Choi, Data Governance & Data Citizens Manager.
As the company grew through acquisitions, GHD’s data estate spanned numerous jurisdictions, each with different regulatory compliance requirements and technology systems. This complexity made traditional, siloed approaches to data management increasingly untenable, especially as the firm looked beyond immediate client demands to long-term innovation.
"We have a huge ambition around AI and our CIO, Paul Murphy, understood the importance of having strong data management. " Pinder explains. " In order to be good at AI, you've got to have your foundations in place."
Organizational complexity meets data simplicity
GHD established its Data Management Office to lay the groundwork for operational and AI needs. Having led similar data transformations in roles across investment banking and professional services, Pinder knew the downsides of IT stacks cluttered with point solutions. “Given the complexity of our technology landscape, having multiple platforms and solutions for data management just wouldn’t work for us,” explains Pinder.
The desire for simplicity drew them to Informatica's Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC), which offers hundreds of services in a flexible, consumption-based license. “The beauty of Informatica is that it’s easy, seamless and has all components in one place,” says Pinder. “Having a one-stop shop for data management makes it so much easier and more interoperable.”
GHD's solution focused on a few core IDMC areas:
- Cloud Data Integration delivers seamless connectivity across GHD's existing Microsoft Azure infrastructure and various enterprise applications. Real-time data synchronization and automated workflows empower the firm with scalable, secure and reliable data pipelines that accelerate analytics and decision-making, while reducing IT complexity and overhead.
- Cloud Data Quality offers automated data profiling and quality assessment capabilities that ensure high standards with drastically less manual coding and review.
- Cloud Data Catalog and Governance establishes common vocabulary and data literacy across GHD’s global systems for better collaboration and reporting.
Robust integrations with Microsoft were key to a successful implementation. GHD’s technology stack includes everything from Microsoft Fabric as their central data lakehouse to Power BI for downstream reporting capabilities. As Sarah Choi explains: "Microsoft is our key partner, so we needed a seamless integration with our data management and data governance solutions."
The rollout began with a maturity assessment conducted in partnership with the EDM Council and their CDMC (Cloud Data Management Capabilities) framework. As the only certified provider that aligns to all 14 CDMC controls, Informatica helped streamline this process and showcase a holistic transformation roadmap to secure executive investment.
“The beauty of Informatica is that it’s easy, seamless and has all components in one place. Having a one-stop shop for data management makes it so much easier and more interoperable.”
“Data quality is automated. Data lineage is there. All that is powered by CLAIRE AI, the engine behind the scenes."
"In order to be good at AI, you've got to have your foundations in place."
Proving quick data wins for the business
One of GHD’s biggest historical pain points was data quality. In the past, diagnosing issues often required writing custom SQL procedures and manually interrogating databases, a time-consuming process that often delayed projects. Quality issues in downstream Analytics and Business Intelligence could also hurt trust with key business stakeholders.
To quickly show the value of IDMC, the team focused first on data profiling and classification. “With Informatica’s robust and easy integrations, we can simply click a button and harvest metadata from applications like Salesforce or Oracle,” says Pinder. “With another click, we can profile that data and understand exactly what the anomalies are.”
Having a central data catalog improved communication across GHD’s global operations. Teams can more readily find, classify and inventory critical data, and an enterprise glossary of terms helps link logic with physical data sets. “We're speaking more of the same language, so the literacy is definitely increased," notes Pinder. "Having that common vocabulary is extremely important when you work in multiple jurisdictions."
When it comes to personally identifiable information (PII), the team no longer needs to write custom rules to locate sensitive data across systems, such as email addresses or date of birth. “Informatica helps automatically tag and classify any data that might be dangerous PII,” Pinder notes. “We can work closely with our internal data privacy officer to demonstrate how we can link policy to data assets, then also generate related data governance workflows.”
Another early win was enhanced data lineage, providing end-to-end visibility previously thought impossible. "Understanding the source of where the data came from, what transformations have applied to it, and then how it ends up in a Power BI report – we could never demonstrate that before in one single place," Pinder observes.
Underlying all these improvements is Informatica’s CLAIRE AI engine, which automates the data processing and management of key metadata intelligence across systems. "Data quality is automated. Data lineage is there. All that is powered by CLAIRE AI, the engine behind the scenes," Choi explains.
With greater Business Process Automation for all kinds of data management tasks, analysts can focus more time on fixing issues and adding value. Automated policy enforcement and data masking further ensure that users only see data they're authorized to access, while comprehensive audit trails provide the documentation required for local compliance.
The path ahead for MDM, AI and beyond
GHD’s new data foundation positions them to pursue increasingly sophisticated use cases. Master Data Management (MDM) and reference data represent the next major initiatives, helping bolster referential integrity across systems. The company is also establishing clearer protocols for API generation and data distribution, ensuring that client APIs and other data services have a clear understanding of authoritative data sources and proper distribution.
Cultural transformation also remains a priority through GHD's data citizenship program. As Pinder explains: "As a data diplomat, I call it data therapy. It's really important to listen to your stakeholders. Don't just come to them with a full-blown strategy around data management. Understand what their pain points and ambitions around data are."
Today, GHD's engineers can focus on solving the world's most complex infrastructure challenges while their data works intelligently behind the scenes. Every design built with better data, every water system optimized through AI insights and every environmental project guided by intelligent analytics creates a ripple effect that improves millions of lives.
Ready to simplify your data governance and compliance?
