United Kingdom
Most retail "modernizations" make things worse. In 20 years of retail transformations, I've seen the same pattern: Retailers trapped between systems that can't talk to each other and "upgrades" that break everything. The hidden cost? Decision paralysis. 55% of European retailers can't consolidate data from multiple channels, leading to a 30% loss in potential insights. They know their systems are broken but won't fix them because the risk feels too high. Here's what actually works: -Start with the business problem, not the technology. -Map the workflows before touching the code. -Test everything in parallel before switching anything off. Sounds simple, but it isn't. Because we forget the HUMAN in between the TECH. The successful ones think like operators first, technologists second. Three things killing retail modernization: 1. Treating symptoms instead of root causes 2. Assuming cloud-first means cloud-only 3. Forgetting that retail never sleeps Currently researching what's next for EMEA retail technology. P.S. I love writing about mental wellness too because I've learned this: stressed teams build broken systems.
1300+ stores. 4 countries. 48-hour data delays killing decisions. When Europe's largest health retailer asked us to fix their data chaos, I discovered the real problem: They were trying to make retail operations fit their systems, instead of making systems fit retail operations. Helped Design and Build their first real-time data warehouse and BI system. Regional Managers went from 15 hours/week creating reports to getting instant insights. The lesson: Great architecture should be invisible to the people using it.
A retailer with big ambitions and a small problem: 1000+ stores, disparate IT team of less than 5 people They needed everything. Data migration, new POS, new inventory management, new CRM, Payment systems that worked in different countries. A promotion engine that could handle their complex offers. Inventory management across all locations. And someone to keep it all running 24/7. Started with designing the payment integrations - each country had different vendors and regulations. Built a custom promotion engine because nothing off-the-shelf could handle their pricing complexity. Then rolled out Oracle POS and inventory systems store by store. The trickiest part? Setting up production support from scratch. These folks had never managed IT operations before, so we built processes, trained teams, and created the entire support infrastructure. Two and a half years later, they had full IT operations supporting their entire network. Building something from nothing teaches you to focus on what actually matters.