Capabilities / Data strategy

A data platform is a business commitment.

A platform needs funding and people to operate it long after the initial build. Establish what the business needs and what it will cost to meet those needs before choosing the technology.

At Holland & Barrett, I redirected external spend into an in-house data and analytics capability, building the teams and platform together. At Worldpay, my interim remit covered data, platform and analytics strategy alongside the operating model. That experience informs my advice on investment and ownership.

From source to decision

I assess whether to improve an existing system, buy a capability or build something new. That means examining migration risk, vendor dependence, team capability and ongoing cost alongside the architecture.

Some problems need a new platform. Others need a smaller pipeline, a better definition or a clearer owner.

When a decision depends on an untested assumption, focused technical investigation can help resolve it. Before starting, we agree what to test, how much work is justified and when to stop.

Work with the constraints

A source changing its format, incomplete records or a misleading metric can undermine an otherwise sound system. Make those failure modes visible, assign ownership and decide how the organisation should respond before relying on it.

Commercial lessons from building at scale

In early Bold Data work, I independently built a scale-out crawler and scraper running across Google Cloud and AWS. It collected approximately 250 million Amazon product extractions across several countries at low operating cost. This is a count of extractions, not unique products.

The platform worked technically but did not become a viable business. It taught me to test demand as carefully as the technology.

Published work

The Amazon product and bestseller data release and bestseller analysis illustrate earlier Bold Data work. These are historical datasets; consult their collection dates and licence. This site does not imply an actively maintained feed.

Explore strategy and investment decisions or email me with the data decision your business faces.