JUNE - AUGUST 2023retailtechinsights.com8For many years, I have worked for Retail organizations that have been embarking on a journey of change within their IT environment. These changes predominantly included either an upgrade or replacement of a number of their core systems such as the ERP system, website platform, or both. Having been involved and led the delivery of a number of these initiatives, it was very clear that the underpinning project requirements had always been underestimated leading to longer delivery timeframes, subsequently increasing costs to the business. Additional frustrations ensued around the business due to the lack of visibility of any new solutions due to the big bang go-live requirements and the need to continue to operate legacy systems for lengthy time periods.Starting a new role at the end of the first Covid lockdown allowed me to reflect on what pain points have experienced in previous organizations and what we can do to change the way we work in the future. With the advancement of technology and the users' expectation for simple solutions that can be used with little training and experience, I started to question the reason for having large solutions that perform multiple tasks and require significant support overhead. The risks of an outage affected multiple departments and the level of bespoke developments needed to meet current and future business needs were vast. Having reviewed the IT environment with new ideas and aspirations, the clear immediate requirement was to replace an aging ERP solution which was overdue an upgrade and required a huge amount of housekeeping By Richard Surman, Head of IT, Crew Clothing CompanyBusiness Critical IT Services for E-Commerce Richard SurmanIN IN MY OPINION
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