.png)
The FODcast
In the FODcast (The Future of #DigitalCommerce) we explore the real career stories of the people who have made it to the very top of the sector and those who are working at the cutting edge of innovation and change right now. Listeners to the podcast gain insight into the journeys industry leaders have taken to be where they are today, the challenges they are facing now and their aims for the future.
The FODcast
The Fatal Flaw: Why Tech-Led Projects Fail with Simon Hamblin
We’re excited to announce the launch of Season 7 of The FODcast! This season brings you fresh insights from top industry leaders, innovators, and experts. As always, we’re exploring the latest trends, strategies, and challenges in the digital commerce space.
Our global audience continues to grow, with listeners tuning in from across the UK, the United States, Germany, Brazil, and even places as far afield as Japan and Australia. Whether you're in retail, tech, or any industry at the intersection of digital transformation, this latest season will have something for you.
New Episode: Simon Hamblin on the Secrets of Successful Digital Transformation
To kick off the new season, we sit down with Simon Hamblin, co-founder of fusefabric, Shopify's largest enterprise partner in Europe, to discuss why technology-led projects fail so often and what it takes to get digital transformation right.
Simon’s career is nothing short of impressive, with past roles such as scaling ASOS technology during its billion-pound growth phase, leading global technology at Emirates Group, and overseeing 30 travel brands worldwide. He brings invaluable experience from his work in diverse industries, including retail, travel, and finance.
In this episode, Simon explains why business leadership, not technology, must drive transformation. He highlights the importance of aligning technology with business needs and dives into the discovery process that sets successful projects in motion.
Simon also shares how fusefabric’s approach, including the rapid migration of a multi-million-pound business to Shopify in just eight days, challenges conventional thinking and ensures digital transformations succeed where others fail.
Don’t miss this insightful conversation packed with actionable takeaways.
#DigitalTransformation #AIinRetail #Shopify #TechLeadership #FODcastSeason7
Simply Commerce is the leading supplier of talent into digital commerce across technology, digital marketing, product, sales, and leadership.
Find our more about our approach and our services within digital commerce recruitment here: https://simply-commerce.co.uk/
Hello and welcome to Season 7 of the podcast, the podcast focused on the future of digital commerce hosted by Simply Commerce. Season 7 promises to continue to bring you some of the industry's brightest minds across the globe as we unpick the sector and where it's heading From war stories to strategy and technology, deep dives to future trends we cover it all as we continue our journey to have one of the most popular podcasts in commerce. Before we start, if you enjoy our content, please do hit the subscribe button on whatever platform you're listening on, like and share on socials. Hello and welcome back to season seven of the podcast the Future of All Things Digital Commerce.
Speaker 1:Today, I'm very pleased to welcome Simon Hamlin, co-founder of one of the UK's most successful Shopify agencies, fuse Fabric. I've been hoping to have Simon on the show for a while. Pj and himself have built an awesome business in Fuse Fabric and his background in digital speaks for itself, so it's a great pleasure. I welcome him on the show today as we break down why technology led projects fail and just how important the discovery process is in your digital transformation. Welcome, simon.
Speaker 2:Thanks, james, happy to be here today.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining me, so look before we start. Do you want to give a quick summary on your background?
Speaker 2:Sure. So notable experiences in my background include very much being a CTO CIO for a lot of my career. I was head of technology at ASOScom, the fashion retailer, for eight years. I was actually employee number two into the technology team back in the early 2000s and was with the business, growing it to its uh through its hyper growth phase, should we say, up to a billion pounds turnover, and very much through its internationalization phase as well. Uh, moving on from there, I went into the finance industry uh, worked in bitcoin in the mid 2010s and set up the UK's largest Bitcoin exchange in the mid-2010s and had some fun doing that, done some scale-ups and startups as well in my time and then, notably, moved on to be global CTO for Emirates Group within the travel division, which is looking after 30 different travel brands around the world Some of them you might know, such as Emirates Holidays and NetFly's Travel Bag Travel Republic those sorts of brands around the world and looking after the technology across multiple countries.
Speaker 2:I then had a role as interim CTO at MISIMA. So MISIMA is a jewellery retailer in the UK. At the time was one of the fastest growing companies in the UK under 100 million turnover and I was interim CTO there. And that's when I got introduced to Shopify through a sort of an emergency implementation Happy to talk about that in a bit more detail shortly. And that's when I got introduced to Shopify and I thought do you know what? There's something in this Shopify it's. You know, as technologists it's hard to get excited about technology sometimes because you see so much of it and there's a lot of crossover and overlap. But actually coming across a platform that piques your interest, that then sort of made us think about, ok, well, is there a business in this? Is there something that you know we could, we can make the most of from a business perspective? So we got involved in Shopify and that's PJ and myself and we founded Fuse Fabric and myself and we founded Fuse Fabric.
Speaker 2:And then fast forward nearly five years and Fuse Fabric is Shopify's largest partner in Europe for enterprise customers. We're a fully remote organization. We are headcounts just over about 85 people spread across Europe and we operate for the likes of Bowdoin, the fashion retailer Flying Tiger Copenhagen from the High Street Newcastle United Football Club, which is very prevalent as they won their cup on the weekend. And yeah, I suppose the differentiator for us is that we're more than just Shopify. Obviously, our world centers around Shopify as a core of our services, but we're very much in that enterprise level, looking at all the complexities. How do you fit Shopify back into your existing landscape? What is your arc, your whole enterprise architecture look like? What is your organizational design? Look like what? How is the business going to operate? How are we going to integrate things? Um, so, obviously we look at Shopify, but we also look at the whole picture as well, which is a key differentiator, um for uh, for us versus other people in the shopify space I was gonna say that's from from where I'm sat.
Speaker 1:Actually, the background that pj and self have definitely uh, looks to be a key differentiator between fuse fabric and the other shopify agencies out there. Obviously, there's no shortage of competition in the uk market right now, even more so with Shopify agencies coming into the UK market from North America and the Nordics. But having that background within complex enterprise, retail and digital transformations is definitely something that sets you apart and I think that's probably a big reason for the success that you guys have had so far. So I think it's probably a big reason for the success that you guys have had so far. Um, so I think it's probably best if we just jump straight in and get started and we kick things off with um. Why do technology-led projects fail every time?
Speaker 2:sure. So where to start? Um, I think you know we feel quite passionately about this. I think it's because, as ctos a group of CTOs and CIOs, that sort of founded Fuse Fabric and in addition to that, we have increased, I should say, our experience with Fuse Fabric by bringing more CTOs into the organization as well that can share their experiences with our clients. And it's just a very common thread that it's very hard and very rare that technology-led projects actually succeed. And, to your point, why is that? Why? Why do we believe that? Or why have we seen that?
Speaker 2:Typically, it's because technology is the enabler for transformations. It's not necessarily the leader of the transformation, and somebody in the business doesn't necessarily wake up one morning and think, okay, I, I just need to implement shopify, for example, or an e-commerce platform let's take the name out of it, an e-commerce platform. Or I need, I'm going to implement an erp today. That that's not. That's not where it comes from the need. It comes from the need, you know, the the business needs to be a better visibility of its operations and its finances. That would then result in the fact that there is a technology transformation underneath it. Or we need to improve our customer experience and customer journey, you know, and be able to be in control of the content on our website. That would then generate the need for you know implementing some kind of technology solution, need for you know implementing some kind of technology solution.
Speaker 2:Um, and so the point is that the it's key, obviously, that the businesses are driving their roadmap and the technology is enabling that. And then, when it comes to projects, it's all about getting everybody on board and getting the business on board and getting everyone behind it, and the business is driving the decisions and the requirements and the technology partners and internal teams are then there to support, you know, the delivery of the technology, support those requirements. Um, so it's just. I just find, from my experience I've not seen you know one, a project where technology are leading and making decisions on behalf of the business, a successful model, because the business, at the end of the day, have to operate with what they've been given in that particular model. And how do the technology teams know what the business want if they're just leading and making decisions? How do they know where the business is going in the strategy? So it should always be led by the business, you know, business strategy with the business people involved. That then is delivered by the technology teams and I also think that a really good example of that is, you know, sort of a good example of that is Misma.
Speaker 2:I still think that comes back to a good story around Misma and the way that we migrated multi-million pound business onto Shopify in eight days from idea to go live. So that was the question Can we get onto Shopify, how quickly can we get to Shopify? To actually go live was eight solid days. That's it. As I said, there was a bit of an emergency implementation and we had a time at around 60 people headcount within the business. So the way that we made that happen wasn't what the technology were leading it. The business had a requirement, we had to move it and then getting everybody on the same page and pointing them in the same direction and running that process really tightly and then listening to the business. That's the way that we then delivered on the business requirements, rather than sort of this technology leading the implementation eight days, though that's.
Speaker 1:I mean that's fast right?
Speaker 2:I mean it's not often you hear about yeah yeah, long weekends as as well, just to make it happen. I think it just proves the point that if you get everybody pointing in the right direction from a business perspective just how fast you can actually move, you know, to that end point solution. Obviously we don't advocate for eight days on any project, but it's just an example what happens when you get everybody in the right space and you include the business on that process now, I know you mentioned that.
Speaker 1:Uh, obviously technology don't make the decisions, but what we, what we do find sometimes is that the business might make a decision, but they make a decision based on a technology, not necessarily on the. For example, we've been involved in many a conversation where a client has said we need to implement Shopify, or any other e-commerce platform for that matter, and a big one was we need to move composable. Obviously, there's been a big move towards composable over the last five years, and it seems as though obviously I'm not sat there discussing their needs in depth, I'm not doing discoveries, et cetera, years, and it seems as though obviously I'm not sat there discussing their needs in depth, I'm not doing discoveries, etc. But it seems as though they're making these decisions because that is the, the cool thing to do. That is what the competitors are doing, um, that is what they believe they should do, based on the marketing, the markets. Um, what do you think about that?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, absolutely, and of course, there's a middle ground, um, and I think that's what you're you alluding to, and that does absolutely happen. We often have people come to us and say look, we've chosen it. I was discussing this this morning, actually. You know people come to us and say we've chosen Shopify. It's obviously Shopify. It's the leader, right, it's proven in the market. It's the leader. My peers are using it, our competition's using it. My research tells me Shopify is the right platform. So actually it is Shopify until we can prove otherwise during the discovery process. So, rather than run a long-winded RFP process and lots of beauty parades of different partners and solutions, we've chosen Shopify and we need to continue along that track until something comes up that says it's not that, which never yet to come across. That that case. But you know great way of thinking. You know really, uh, fast approach to market.
Speaker 2:Um, having said that, that's absolutely fine. They're leading with a solution. But again, they haven't. They're doing it because they have a need. They they know that they need to improve the customer experience or manage their content or the better order management system, whatever it is that their need is, and they've decided that Shopify is the solution. That's absolutely fine, I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2:But I still then reiterate the point, even within the project of delivering that Shopify solution, that it is business requirements, business led the business making decisions on how they want it to look, feel, how they want the business to operate. How do they do order management, customer management, finance management, operations, whatever it is that's still being led by the business, and then the technology teams are delivering on those requirements. So my comment still stands even if it is that the business are leading with a solution, go, I really need to implement this. They. They're only thinking that because they have a problem, and that's fine, they've agreed on that, that's absolutely fine to have a problem with that, but it's still that the business should be leading those transformations.
Speaker 1:I think that then leads into the discovery phases you touched upon is to make sure that it's not just a case of right. We're going to implement Shopify as an example. Let's sure that it's not just a case of right we're going to implement shopify as an example. Let's go ahead, it's okay, this is, this is our platform of choice. Now let's really understand how we're going to implement it, what features we need to get out of it, and and actually go through the process of a full discovery to make sure that a is the right platform and and b they then they then maximize it yeah, yeah, and and the first step in you know.
Speaker 2:So we've covered off the fact that you know we decided we want to do we have a business requirement that needs a technical solution, or we've decided, or we went one step further and decided it's already Shopify, right, doesn't really matter. That's where we are in our cycle. And then the next thing after that is okay, sounds good, we need to do that, I agree. Next thing after that is okay, sounds good, we need to do that, I agree. Next question is what am I actually going to get? What does it look like in the future? How long is it going to take? Yeah, what's the plan and how much is it going to cost me? Right, it doesn't matter who you are in the business. If you're a shareholder, you're a owner of the business, you're a director of the business, you're a C-suite member, you're part of the SLT, you're one of the team, it doesn't matter. Everyone's got the same questions on their mind. They all want to know what am I going to get, how long is it going to take, how much is it going to cost? And that, ultimately, is the point of the discovery process. But also at an enterprise level, there's an additional question was how the hell are we going to get rid of all our 15 year old architecture and fit something modern, as like Shopify, into this, because we're all this legacy stuff that we deal with. It's spaghetti. How on earth are we going to put something like that in? What does it mean? How are we going to change? How do we change the way we operate as a business? Right? So you have this additional question, in addition to the basics of what, when and how much, and all of that we would answer during a discovery phase. That's the ultimate outcome of the discovery phase and it doesn't mean that you come out of discovery phase with the nth degree of detail and say, yeah on this particular one, you know, on this date, to this pound, to this is the actual scope. It's not about that. It's about saying, look roughly, this is your scope of what you've asked for. The plan is is, you know, got some kind of level of tolerance within it. You know some contingency, 20, 30 contingency, and the same with the budget. And everybody knows that if you've done transformations before, scope will change, things will change, partners involved, people involved. It's there's an element of change. Same when you build a house or you extend your house, you don't. You never go into that thinking that's the price. You've always got a contingency. It's the same when you're building software or doing digital transformations, it's no different. Um, but the point is that you need to come out and discover is something that everyone's comfortable with and can stand behind. Um, and also reflects all areas of the business. Again, this is where we say what you know. If you said to me okay, what is a business-led project? What does that actually mean? It just basically means involving all areas of the business. Again, this is where we say, if you said to me okay, what is a business-led project? What does that actually mean? It just basically means involving all areas of the business. So that includes every element. So you know, including the marketing teams, including the legal teams, right, including the people and culture teams, because there's a transformation that's infecting people's roles and responsibilities within the business. So you know, of course, the e-com teams, customer care teams, operation team, finance teams, but it's including everybody. So everybody has a view, everybody has an input into their requirements, so that there are no surprises when you come to actually go into, or very few surprises. You're limiting the the chances of surprises when you go into delivery. Um, so making sure everyone's involved in the discovery, the right people involved in discovery, is absolutely key, um. And then essentially, as I said, you're going to run a series of workshops to understand the requirements across those different areas. We understand scope, we understand the business strategy, we understand the scope that aligns the strategy. We can then work out what the phasing is, because maybe it's a multi-phase, we're doing international first before the big main market, or maybe it's this B2B first versus D2C. So you come out with a plan and then you've also got a budget aligned to that as well, from platform costs to also operational costs as well. How are you going to support the platform going forward? So that process is absolutely key, um, and we really stand behind that um, you know. So it's not not about doing a waterfall project, necessarily that, it's not that at all. But there is an element of you know, everybody needs to know what they're walking into. You know before it happens, and it's just a gated process so the business can decide at that point. You know what they're walking into. You know before it happens, and it's just a gated process so the business can decide at that point. You know what? No, we can't invest that level. You know, we thought we thought we could, but we can't. Or actually we want to change the delivery shape of it. We want to go. You know, actually we're happy to put the main business first and do international afterwards, or whatever the decision is, or you know. So there's a conversation that can happen that will then shape delivery. So it's a gated process that business can decide to stop, go or change the shape of the delivery going forward. But it's absolutely fundamental to success, to getting that discovery piece done. It also flushes out the nasty stuff, the really hard stuff, because that's the last thing you want in delivery. Everyone goes into delivery and, yep, we've got a date and everybody knows what they think they're going to do. And then they come to understand some difficult areas like taxes and duties on international. They're suddenly realizing, ok, well, hold on, how are we going to do this? And that's going to delay the project. So if you're going into a project going, ok, we've already discussed it. We know it's a problem area and in fact we've already solved some of that in discovery because we've had the time to go and discuss it. Um, uh, or we were carrying that risk into the project. So everybody knows when we get to this piece it's going to be a little bit difficult and those manage, those expectations are managed and you sort of mean everything is sort of it's not a surprise again. Or you decide there's a number of difficult areas that we are worried about as a business. So before we go into delivery we're actually going to do like a four or eight week piece, a poc, so proof of concept phase, where we're just going to take that really hard stuff and we're just going to really drill down on those areas so that we can get more comfortable and we get more comfortable that the platform can handle it, the scope is right, it doesn't impact the plan or does impact the plan by this and actually the cost is still the cost or it's changed the cost and we understand why that would change the cost. So we kind of just I mean you can manage that through and then build that into a small proof of concept phase before going into delivery and ultimately what we're trying to do is make sure when we go into delivery it's the most predictable outcome, you know, and least surprises possible yeah, joe, at the start of that, I love how you you represent to building uh, an extension and the architecture behind it and just the fact that cool, that's the blueprint, that's how it will likely go ahead.
Speaker 1:But actually you need a contingency plan and you know there's a good chance that there's going to be um hiccups along the way, right and and actually, how can we deal with those? And I think that was a really good analogy. I also, I mean, you've just listed off like a million and one important reasons why discovery is so important and and the benefits from it, but yet what I often find when I'm speaking to uh people in the space is that one of the reason, one of the main reasons that transformations fail is because the discovery wasn't in-depth enough. What I'd be interested to know, simon, is why do you think companies skimp out when it comes to a discovery? Is it the cost? Is it the time? Is it the agency involved not knowing what they're doing and going into enough detail? Maybe a combination of everything?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think it's a bit of a combination of everything, as you say. I think that some partners in the space don't recognise the fact that a discovery needs to go across the entire business. You need to look at all the operational processes. You know, not just when people think, for example, shopify an e-commerce platform, they're concentrating very much on the front end, on the customer user experience, and I am not for one minute saying that is not important. But it's not the be all and end all. It's also about what's the operating model for the. It's an e-commerce platform. It's almost more than e-commerce platform with the amount of features available in Shopify. So it's how's the whole business going to operate, not just how's the website going to look for the customer at the end of the day. So it's really important that the discovery is all encompassing across the business. So, forgive me, I've gone. You're lost in my train of thought. What was your?
Speaker 1:question um just around why companies uh often don't do it in depth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, okay, um, so other things I see with discovery is that people, your businesses, don't necessarily want to do the depth of discovery sometimes, or they're not quite understanding why they need to do a discovery. Why can't they just, you know, get on and implement a front-end website? Um, I think if you're not recognizing your you need to do some level of discovery, then perhaps your experience in transformations is is is not quite quite there. So it's just about taking people on a journey and and helping them understand why the discovery process is important, but also you actually dig into that. They are. Those leaders in the business anyway are being asked, as I said, as by a shareholder or c-suite member. You know well, how long is this going to take, you know? Or how much is it going to cost you having to answer those questions?
Speaker 2:Um, but discovery can be done in in different ways, different depths. So it's always we always cover the width, right, we always cover every part of the business. But if somebody wants to do a quick discovery because they're like look, we're at this part of the right, at the beginning of the journey, we're, we're ideating, we're thinking about it. We just want to know roughly how much, how long and what are we going to get? I just want to know a rough idea. That's fine, we'll run a discovery. That's just not so in depth in areas, so we wait to. We just skim across the top, get a good idea. We have a good amount of experience and we can just draw an experience and roughly gauge the conversation, but we still go the full width. So we still go, you know, across the whole business.
Speaker 2:Others are the other end of the spectrum, which is we've chosen shopify. It's a go. We've already got a provisional board approval. We know, for you know, we know, because we've done this before, roughly how much we need to approve for it's a go. So we need to go, we need to get into it and we also want to make it as predictable as possible in delivery. When that case, then it's still the same width but it's a lot more in depth. So rather than going across a number of workshops at a shallow depth, we might go across a 20 plus workshops to get to that depth of information, to come out of it with a real, you know, predictable plan and a predictable budget.
Speaker 2:So my point is depending on where you are in your journey. I just thinking about it to. We've chosen it, we're doing it, we would. You know you can. You can change your level of depth of discovery and and and how deep you go, and therefore you do the predictableness of the outcome, but you would always maintain the width. You wouldn't just go. Do you know what? We just won't talk to this particular over the business because you're still not seeing the whole picture. So you can vary it. Basically, to your yeah said, where you are in your journey of transformation nice.
Speaker 1:So, um, I guess that just goes back to the importance of having the business buying and being business led, because if you're running 20 workshops, that's a lot of different people involved. Um, so, uh, there we go, cool. So just really quickly. Then how you've run your discovery, then how do you, how do you set up for success?
Speaker 2:um, one of those, a couple of them. Um, one point is from a technical perspective. I'll lead on that one just because of a point earlier I meant to make, which is around that enterprise architecture. So the other outcome of discovery in in addition to what am I going to get, how long is it going to take and how much is it going to cost is also what does that whole architecture look like? What's my, one of my, all my systems look like on one page, and that um is really key because that's like your north star from a technical perspective, because, the end of the day, there's a lot of technical output that's going to support those business requirements.
Speaker 2:Um, a good example of that is when we implemented for boden um, you know the we. They spent a long time internally and with our partners at the time trying to understand all their as-is systems. Um, that and you can imagine very complex architecture, lots of legacy as well, and trying to unpick it all, and one of the processes we did there was basically come in, we understood all the systems, we wrote down the aziz architecture on one page, we wrote down the target architecture on another page and then we came up with a phased approach that boden could use to enter into that. So, depending on their risk appetite and budget appetite, I am I going all in or am I just going to do the bare minimum. They hit about the middle. They had those options, if you like. You know, and they could see that architecture change over time as to get to the target architecture. And once we've chosen that middle ground, that was the architecture that was used throughout the digital transformation that lasted over a year and that we've implemented at Bowdoin, and it's absolutely key. So everybody knows the direction that they're traveling, traveling in. So that's key as well. People understand where are we trying to get to, at least from a technical perspective.
Speaker 2:And then I think the other one is although it sounds a really boring word, you know it's the governance word. It's how do you manage the, the project itself, how do you manage that transformation, how do you create communication throughout the business, the transparency of progress, but also issues as well, and how do you keep everybody on board and motivated towards that goal? And governance is the way, and having an effective governance model is absolutely key, and part of that governance model is also having a really strong steering group. Uh, and a strong steering group for me from experience is a is having that top-down leadership, so having the real you know, the leaders of the business as part of the project and overseeing the project, but also the mechanics of that steering group as well. I've been in too many steering groups in my time where it's a one-way communication, as in it's the project team telling the steering what what's happening on the project steering, asking a few probing questions and then just getting upset for the things that perhaps are not going that well on the project. That's not an effective steering group. That's just a project update. That's not a real steering group.
Speaker 2:A real steering group is one that obviously is receiving the communications about what's happening within the transformation, but they're also they're helping to solve, they're helping to remove the blockers for the team, they're helping to you know, to offer to get involved as well, and also it's about escalation.
Speaker 2:So perhaps the working group have made a decision or can't make a decision because they just feel it's to do, it's so strategic that the leadership team needs to make that decision. It's about surfacing that up and saying, hey, you can go for option a or you can go for option b. What do you want to do? You know steering, love it and trust me, when you get a good steering, they love it. They're just like oh, this is fantastic. I actually get to be part of the project and help drive the project forward. I can do it at a steering level and I know I'm helping the team and I'm helping the business because I'm making these decisions. So having a steering actually steer the clue's in the name right, but actually having them steer the project is a really good demonstration of an effective governance model.
Speaker 1:I love that, angel. Sometimes it's the basic things, like a good governance model, clear that and jill, sometimes it's the, it's the the basic things like a good governance model, clear communication, clear process, clear structure, know who to hold accountable, etc. Etc. That make a difference. We're not trying to uh recreate the wheel right, it's just uh, just about doing the basics that we already know. On the note of the steering group, I imagine there's a fine line but between having not enough people involved and having too many people involved, like in your opinion, like it's going to vary. There's no such thing as a perfect steering group, but how many who do you think really needs to be in the steering group to make it as effective as possible?
Speaker 2:It's really the people that ultimately accountable for those areas of the business. So you might have a C-suite member, the COO, that's responsible for multiple areas of the business. That's absolutely fine. But it is that senior leadership that the buck stops with them. They're accountable, they can make that decision because underneath that steering group is essentially a program board and that is a much larger group of people Again has a represent representative from every area of the business. Yeah, no matter where they are in the business, you know they, they are represented in that group. Um, and again, there might be multiple layers within the program board, lots of people involved, because they're the people that's actually doing the work, driving the project forward and ultimately that's then getting surfaced up to that steering group. So as long as the steering group is kind of the ultimate, has the ultimate accountability for all those different areas of the business, it doesn't matter how small or large it is, but you know it's those kind of.
Speaker 2:It's normally like a, you know a C-suite, you know the COO, the CTO, the CEO, cmomo, cpo, cfo type of group yeah, they're going to be that, that steering group, because you know that'll just mean they're accountable for the business nice, thank you, um.
Speaker 1:So, um, moving on to the next question, and this is one of the questions I really like because it, uh, it really draws out from your experience and hearing some of the the war stories that you've probably encountered over the years in digital transformation. Um, but what are the top challenges that you faced, um in digital transformations and how you overcome them?
Speaker 2:um. So I think complexity I think we touched on it earlier as well um, just just people are having to deal with at an enterprise level, have to deal with such complex landscapes, and and actually complexity lies across people as well as technologies, as well as process, and I know you know the phrase has been around for a long time, but I still do believe on it um, you know you've got to navigate. You know how are the teams going to operate in the future? What does my team, what do those teams look like? You know, post transformation, how are we going to change operationally as a business? How will we do this process once we are, you know, completed our transformation? Yeah, and then, and then, technically, how the hell are we going to make all this happen, you know, and how's it all going to fit together? So there is that, just that real complexity.
Speaker 2:And I think the other one is you know, generally people are buying technology, not building it, right, so they're adopting, you know, rather than than building it. Um, and I would always say also, say, in retail particularly, you know, people are looking to build technology. Then then the question is is why, um? And then, if you're taking a platform, it's about adapting the, adapting to and adopting the platform and the way that the platform you do changes your business processes. So, as in, rather than sort of writing down, this is this is how we do today and this is how we will want to do it in the future, and then creating that gap analysis and creating all the change to achieve it.
Speaker 2:Actually, how does the platform do it today, or what does the platform offer? Okay, great, that's going to be our operating process in the future, or that is going to be our feature in the future, rather than trying to retrospectively fit everything into that platform, because essentially, you're just going to get into this analysis, paralysis, place where you know everything's just going to take a lot longer. You're trying to recreate what you had, but that doesn't that doesn't mean that it's the right way to do it going forward, because what you, the way you have it, was probably in a place where you could specify everything from the ground up. You're recreating things, but actually, if you look at a platform, there are millions of people, million merchants using that platform and it's designed in that way for a reason is optimized based on all of that feedback and usage. So actually, you should be looking at the way the platform's offering it, rather than trying to recreate what you have today I, um, yes, I, I really agree.
Speaker 1:In fact, we had a lady from valtech on the show in the last season and she gave a really good analogy there as well and said when you buy a house, you don't buy a house to then decorate it in exactly the same way as your old house. You buy a house because it's new and you want to enjoy having the extra room or whatever it might be. And I mean, what is different is a lot of similarities between what you've just said and that's. You get a new piece of software because it does something different and actually it might reduce the amount of time to go from A to B because it does something different and actually it might reduce the amount of time to go from A to B. So you don't want to start adding in, click here and do this and do that, because it's just going to complicate things both in terms of the integration and make it more expensive, but then actually remove the benefits you might receive from getting the new platform anyway.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 2:I think it's also about speed as well. You know we talk about this. So would you rather have 85% arbitrary numbers to some respects, but let's go with 85% of the functionality quicker or would you rather have 100% of the functionality, which will take a significant amount longer? What would you rather have? Well, lo and behold, most people, 99% of people, 95% of people decide actually, do you know what? I'll take the lesser because I can get it quicker and I can start realizing the value of that from the business. And actually I'll test and learn and actually I'll decide do I actually need that extra five or ten percent? I thought I did, but actually I probably don't. In reality, they're probably all nice to have. So let's go with that 85 and let's move to the next thing that's going to move the business on, you know, rather than perfect it.
Speaker 2:But of course there are outliers and there are business models that absolutely require that extra 10 or 15 percent, and that's fine. I'm not talking to that. But in general principle term, you know, the thing we always try and promote is well, is this good enough? You know? Do you really need that 5, 10 percent? I also think that a good example of that is Flying Tiger Copenhagen, who's one of our clients as well, and they very much adopted a stance of well, you do tell us what shop, because they're already on Shopify, have been for many years, we've operated for them and you know their stance is okay, we're wanting to do this, how does Shopify do it? And that will be the basis of our requirements for the change. And if anybody wants to push back on that internally, then they really have to make that case to say, well, we need this extra 5%, 10% because of X, Y and Z, and that's fine, but it very rarely does it actually come to fruition.
Speaker 2:So we go with what Shopify can offer out of the box and that provides the basis of those features. An example of that would be discounts that they've launched. You know, obviously they actually started internally starting to define OK, these are all the discounts that we want, or we think we want, and the CTO turned around and said, well, actually, no, no discounts. What does Shopify offer? That will be the basis of the business offering and only if you can justify it will we go over and above that. So I really like that, the way that they've really embraced that as a principle. I mean, I talk about it as a general principle, but they've really baked it into the way that they kind of drive their features forward. They just go. Well, how do I help? What does Shopify do today? Yep, that'll be good for know phase one. You know, let's get it out there and get it done quickly and get the value from it and, as I said, test and learn and see if, see if we need to enhance upon it.
Speaker 1:So I like that. It's really good, uh, it's really good to ethos to have. Like you said, get it out there, get the value test, learn. Do we need the extra 10? If not cool, what else is going to move that needle forward? Um, and invest, invest in there. I think that kind of leads quite nicely onto how we're seeing things play out in the market right now.
Speaker 1:There's obviously been a big push, uh over the last five years to to move composable um. We're starting to see um adobe sap salesforce come back in the mix. Shopify has always been there as a challenger. Obviously, that's really pushing enterprise now as well. But I feel it's because companies bit off more than they could chew. They were sold a dream about being best of breed and actually what they didn't realize is just how complex it is. And, going to your point, do they need to be 100% best of breed? Probably not. We're seeing the Mac Alliance now come with best of suite, which I think is probably more aligned to what companies need. Because, let's be honest, how often are you going to be replacing your search or your PIM? Right, like you don't need to replace those areas every couple of years. But I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts quickly on kind of how you're seeing those conversations play out, because I imagine that's a regular occurrence for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. Look, I think it's been a really interesting Journey. You know, when I was at Asos back in the early 2000s, we didn't have the luxury of, you know, buying technology and there weren't the platforms available at the time. So everything was built from the ground up and everything was custom solution, because that was, that was the only option essentially for us at the time. Um, you know, as as things have moved on, it's gone to a best-of-breed approach. You know where people have chosen multiple different platforms and tried to stitch them together with various levels of success, and you know the integration then is the absolute key and some people have got it right and some people haven't managed to do so. And then we've kind of moved into this phase, or actually now we just have broader platforms. You know the shopifyers and others that has multiple modules within them, you know that are already integrated behind the scenes, that you know you can take off the shelf and get there a lot faster with, without all the complexity. So there's a real shift. As I said, you know the commodity off the shelf platforms you can now just buy, and if you're not doing it, well, your competitors are and your peers are, so you're ultimately going to be putting your business at risk if you're not taking a platform such as that. So I think the approach has really changed, as the options have also changed as well, have also changed as well.
Speaker 2:Um, when it comes to building technology, uh and I think this can still this point probably still stands as to whether you're, you know, in the big headed versus headless debate as well. I still come back to why. I still think you just need to ask that question. All the time, somebody said we need to build a complete custom platform or a custom front end, or even just a custom component. Why, why, why, what is that? Why can't you, you know, not take something off the shelf? Why do we need to? What's that value that it's going to provide? What's the competitive advantage it's going to give us by building this piece rather than, you know, buying the technology? Because you know these people have and those people have, so why aren't we doing that? Um, and so I I just think it's just worth you just ask that question why? Why do? Why do we need to do it?
Speaker 2:And I do agree, I think there are places that you would be building certain pieces of technology to give you that advantage. You know, I'm not against it, but I'm just saying that as a whole, as a cto or you know remember the c-suite I'd just be asking that question why and what are our other options? You know, and again, just letting that steering group decide. You know, even the steering groups go okay. Well, because that's the other thing that I see as well. They people come up with, okay, we need to build this because of these requirements, and he goes all up to steering group and the steering go okay, that gives me that.
Speaker 2:But you've also given me this other option over here, which means that I can go faster and I don't have everything. But actually I didn't want that one differentiator that's forced you into a build route. So actually I'll take this option now because I didn't want that one differentiator that's forced you into a build route. So actually I'll take this option now because I didn't want that extra thing it's going to give me anyway. But you thought I did um, and I can get there quicker and cheaper, so I'll probably go that route you sort of mean so?
Speaker 2:again, we just come back to that effective steering and and helping to make that decision. And it's not technology driving with solutions because they think something. It's actually no. What are the business requirements are they? Are those really the business requirements? Right, these are your options. Present them to steering. Steering decides actually don't need that custom thing. Actually I'll go this way, or perhaps they do, and that's fine as well, but let them make that decision and walk into eyes wide open rather than you know the tech teams. We must build this from a custom perspective. Sorry, it's a bit. It's a bit um, multifaceted that answer, but because it touches on so much of our previous conversation, it's interlinked, it's not, it's just. It's not just.
Speaker 1:You know ones and zeros, not so binary necessarily all the time yeah, and I guess it goes back to like some of the associations you have with words and phrases. It's like right, headless, better personalization, quicker, like et cetera, et cetera. And it's not always the case and, like you said, very, very well, you could have all of this over here for X, or you could have all of this plus this for Y, but for x, or you could have all of this plus this for y, but you don't need the plus this anyway. So actually, just go with this, it's quicker and it saves you and it saves you money. Kind of a no brainer when you put it out like that, isn't it really?
Speaker 2:let's be honest and then there's the myths right, you need to get through our headless. You can get a faster site because it's headless. No, not true, absolutely not true. Oh, better seo because we're headless? No, not true, not true. We can prove it all day long. But people walk in, you know, with their experience, thinking that that's the case and therefore driving a technology decision in that way. So I think it's also about debunking.
Speaker 1:You know things as well yeah, I'm sure there's a list a mile long of those myths as well. They're just probably two of the the common ones. Even I've heard of them. Look, I know we are pressed for time, so let's move on to the final topic and something I'm sure is going to come a lot in the season, and that is talking about AI and kind of what the future holds. I believe you guys at Fuse Fabric are doing something pretty cool with AI, so I'll pass it over to you, simon, to let us know what the future holds with AI.
Speaker 2:Thanks for that really broad handover. I think, yeah, I'm super interested in space. We have, kind of officially, if you like, launched our working title, fuse Fabric AI Studio, which is a division within Fuse Fabric focused on AI. So a lot of people saying they're doing AI, they're working with AI, but actually, when you scratch the surface, what are they actually doing? From our perspective, we're launching a bunch of services and products around it. We're investing because we have the ability to invest in our business. We're investing, we're recruiting in that area and really trying to push that area forward.
Speaker 2:I think that it's a super interesting space. It's moving so fast that, even as somebody that just you know, I'm in it every day, researching it, reading, trying to keep up with it. It's just moving at such a pace. I'm really curious to know how retailers are keeping up with what's going on with AI, because if we're working in AI and working with AI solutions and agents and models and all the rest of it, and we're struggling to keep up, how on earth are retailers doing that right? And I think that then comes back to part of our offering, which is keeping retailers up to date with how. Okay, well, this is where AI is moving to. This is the art of the possible, because that's also another thing. I okay, well, this is this is where I, where ai, is moving to. This is the art of the possible, because that's also another thing. I don't know what I don't know. So you're educating retailers about how ai can help.
Speaker 2:Um, and I think it's just about at this point. A lot of it is around. You know, ideating and consultancy, through to creating proof of concepts to show how ai can help within the business, through to creating and reason what I'll explain, through to creating production solutions. But definitely going into that with your eyes wide open, knowing that that solution will be out of date very quickly, and I really believe that.
Speaker 2:I think if someone's investing in, like if someone's investing in an ai solution for a three-year term, I don't understand it. I can't get my head around that, because it's moving literally week on week or month to month at the moment. How can you invest in one solution, thinking that solution, like you would normally traditionally invest in a platform for at least three years? I want to see a business case for three years. I don't see how you can do that with an agentic solution that just changes all the time. I just don't understand it, and I think the cfos have got a real challenge on their hands, because you know what cfo's like. They're like showing me that whether this thing's going to stay in place for three years and I, etc, etc.
Speaker 2:It's not going to happen, it's going to be yes six months about a day yeah, you know we're going to do this and in six months we'll probably change it and it's going to do it's still probably going to achieve the same thing, but it'll be. It'll need to be a different solution, because that solution is now no longer because that model's deprecated or you know, or actually there's a whole new ai capability here that can just do much more of it, more efficiently, at a lower cost and faster. Therefore, we're going to reimplement the solution. So the CFOs have got a real challenge on their hands, and I think retailers have got a challenge on their hands as well, just to keep up with the pace. I also think that there isn't a one-size-fits-all when it comes to AI. I don't think that there's an AI platform that's going to just at this point. Anyway, we're just going to swap this whole thing out and put in an AI platform. I think it's about looking at the processes, for example, within a reseller, and thinking, okay, where can I use AI in order to improve and automate and make efficiencies or lower my cost of ownership? And then deploying AI solutions that are point solutions right now in those areas and also knowing that they're going to change going forward as well. I think that's the way that I would approach it.
Speaker 2:Um, I also think there's probably three key areas. One is around operational efficiencies. So you know, I said how do I automate, speed up, lower cost of ownership? So, for example, how do I get a product onto the site quicker, from buying a merchandising function through to photo shoot, through to operational readiness, through to publishing, that kind of whole process? That's an example of an operational process. There are plenty more in retailers and those listening will will know in their minds what those are. Um, the other ones is more data analytics. How can I use this data to drive decisions and AI solutions within those areas? And then the other one I think the big bucket is content as well. How can I use AI to generate more engaging, richer content at speed, lower cost, et cetera? And so I think content's another area, and there's probably another couple of buckets that I've yet to identify, but in my mind, those are those three areas that retailers should be looking for.
Speaker 2:As I said, I don't think there's one big platform. I think that retailers will generally start to get used to using AI because all the products that they're using have AI being introduced to them. Do you see what I mean they're going to be using AI within those different products, but also then, I think, deploying AI solutions throughout the back sort of outside of those products, throughout their processes as well, and just over time, we will just get introduced to more AI led features and areas. Questions that I am interested in at the moment I don't have a way to solve this is how do we educate the workforce in general to think about AI more when they're thinking through solutions?
Speaker 2:So, for example, if I ever require generally teams work, I have a requirement. The solution to that is to write down a process, put in a system and some manual intervention to make this thing work. How do we actually bring to the forefront the first question is what elements of what ai models, agentic solutions, platforms are. Are there out there that could solve this requirement? Okay, now there's none. So now we're going to do this. Like you know, we're going to develop. So how do we actually make that? The first question that the people ask and again it comes back I think it's just general education, um, people, you know, just getting used to reading about it and researching themselves, being introduced to it through, uh, the products that they're using every day as well. Um, but I'm really fascinated to see how that really starts to play into that, that conversation around, you know, when they're when they're solving business problems, um, and I think at that point then we'll really see some change and acceleration in ai well, it's.
Speaker 2:I mean, you mentioned a lot sorry yeah, I feel like I just might have a lot at you, but you asked the question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's it, I was just sat there, kind of processing it all, and I love the way you broke it down into those three key areas and operational data content. We're seeing real use cases in all of those areas right now, which I think is really cool. Obviously, some businesses are doing it far better than others and there's certainly a lot of room for growth in those areas. Um, for me, I think the biggest thing is just that educate yourself, but from credible sources.
Speaker 1:You can't go on a vendor's website anymore and not see ai chucked about at least 50 times on their home page. It is absolutely everywhere. I'm on my instagram, I'm on my facebook, my linkedin every other post is either talking about ai in its use cases, or even it's written or whatever in ai. So it is everywhere in life and I think seeing how it's becoming adopted is quite cool a little bit scary, but cool and I think where we're going to be in two or three years is it's going to be be pretty pretty, uh, pretty insane yeah, yeah, exactly two or three years, exactly that.
Speaker 2:Because I think at the moment everyone is either thinking they're using ai because they're using chat, gpt in the background, or something like I'm thinking that's ai and yes, it is. And probably last year you'd be like, yeah, that you're really using it, but this year, no, like that's just a given right. There's so much more happening and actually, who's actually got something in production at scale that is an ai-based solution? You know, I said obviously these products are coming through with ai in them as well, but who's actually deploying ai solutions within the business as well? Um, I think, few and far between. I think a lot of people are thinking about it and or feeling the pressure that they need to, because that's another thing. You know, everyone's asking them shareholders, board members like how, you know, how are we getting, how are we using ai? Because then the understanding that ai can basically essentially um, optimize the business and reduce the cost of ownership. So they're feeling the pressure, but they're also actually I actually know how. How are we going to really leverage this technology?
Speaker 1:I think that's a real challenge at the moment yeah, we, I guess time will tell and we we will. Uh, we'll find out soon. I say soon, two or three years maybe, maybe a little bit quicker. Um, but there we go. Well, I think that's a good spot to wrap it up. Thank you very much for joining me. I've really, really enjoyed that conversation, simon, thank you no worries and thanks for having me as well.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, I've really enjoyed the conversation as well awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, I hope, uh, all our listeners enjoyed it as well. Um, safe to say, we covered an awful lot there. Um, I look forward to listening to this one back, because that's when I really get to grips with the insights that you've shared. But you're obviously coming from a, a, um, a very credible background, simon. You've been through and you've seen a lot and, uh, yeah, I I really do believe that, uh, the conversation, particularly around the discovery, the importance and how you break it down to maximize the success from it, is going to be of interest to many. So, look, thank you for listening. Please do like, share, comment and spread the words. We're season seven now and I look forward to seeing you very soon. Goodbye.
