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With a legacy data issue and ambitious growth plans, Primark Director of Procurement Laura Cook said that data had become a headache for the business, with much of its data historical and previously done on Excel.

However, working with Deducta after a chance meeting, Co-Founder and CEO Jeff Fasegha was able to come in and unify the fashion retailer’s data.

“The advantage was the moment in terms of being taken seriously as a startup,” he told attendees at World Retail Congress on Wednesday afternoon. And it was possible to do the integrations in hours.”

“Two things have been critical,” added Cook. “The first is that the team are super clear about the use cases that are going to have the most impact, that functional business understanding. Secondly, digital curiosity and flexibility, both of which are absolutely key.”

She added that retailers cannot look at the technology in isolation, with Primark looking at structures, staff and processes to get the most of any solution.

“You have to put your digital eco-system at the heart of it and one of the biggest challenges was explaining this to the board,” she said. “And that doesn’t happen overnight and it takes investment, but you get great payback. So, we had to educate them around thinking differently.”

The thread, she said, was to prove that a change has the impact forecast, having quantitive data to support the concept.

Mark McClennon, former CIO of Burberry Group, added: “I understand it’s very different times but the pace of change is not going to get slower. Winning companies have a shift in mindset to take advantage of this. We need to move out of our comfort zones. There can be situations where companies look at a challenge and feel it is too complicated.”

He also warned that with AI, people have a tendency to suspend logic and best practice, possibly because of over enthusiasm or fear and lack of knowledge.

The session was moderated by Liam Buswell, Managing Director of True Advisory.