What this episode is about:

Retail doesn’t stop.

There’s no “quiet period.”

No perfect window.

No margin for error.

From Valentine’s Day to Christmas, from online orders to in-store transactions, data is constantly moving and that makes data migration one of the riskiest activities a retail business can undertake!

In this episode, we break down the real challenges retail organisations face when moving to new systems and why success comes down to planning, precision, and having data you can actually trust.

Because at binary10, we believe one thing:

We are data people and we help organisations make data-driven decisions they can trust.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why timing is everything in retail data migrations (01:54)

• The reality of “no downtime” in retail environments (02:27)

• How peak periods limit your migration windows (02:53)

• Managing constantly moving stock across stores, warehouses, and online (03:54)

• Why cutover in retail is different (and harder) (04:23)

• The importance of multiple dry runs and the cost of getting it wrong (04:30)

• The challenge of live cutovers with ongoing transactions (06:32)

• Why planning is non-negotiable in retail migrations (07:32)

• Why manual and spreadsheet-based migrations fail in retail (07:57)

• The role of automation and trusted toolsets in getting it right (08.00)

Why retail is a different than other sectors:

In most industries, you can pause. Retail doesn’t have that luxury.

Stores stay open.

Websites keep selling.

Stock keeps moving.

That means your migration is happening while the business is still running.

Stock levels are changing in real time

Sales are being processed continuously

Customers expect zero disruption

And if something goes wrong?

You’re not just dealing with data issues, you’re impacting revenue, operations, and customer experience instantly.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by an AI tool that did its best, but it's never met different British accents it could fully decode. Expect a few funny mistakes. Enjoy!

[00:25] - James B

Well, here we are again, Steve.

[00:26] - Steve S

Yeah, great to be back, isn't it?

[00:27] - James B

Absolutely. Really looking forward to this discussion. It's something close to our heart, isn't it? Because this is the area that founded binary10, you know, good old retail. Yeah. A fantastic sector, a sector that's obviously... you know, it's been a number of difficult years, hasn't it? And, you know, one of the things is that data migration, you know, might be a very small piece in that puzzle. And I'm sure no one ever thinks of data migration when they think of retail. But, you know, to ensure that engine, to ensure retail can... and continue to do well and hopefully get improvements in the sector. You know, just a small activity like that is just super critical. So it'd be great to sort of discuss some

of the challenges that, you know, our companies within the retail sector face. And, you know, maybe some of the things that, you know, can really focus their attention and help them out as they, you know, try and do these cost-saving activities of moving to newer, you know, systems, improving their data quality, all those sorts of things.

[01:21] - Steve S

That's right. And there are, you know, obviously all sectors have their own. own sort of i don't know different um issues different challenges i think retail in particular certain specific ones that we're going to talk through i think you know things around particular times a year are more challenging for retail than maybe other sectors as well um other things to consider as well around stock so there's lots of different things to consider with uh with you know specifically to retail.

[01:48] - James B

yeah and funny mention that i mean the classic one i remember was valentine's day yeah i mean i'll be honest valentine's day was probably of some interest. To me in my late teens for a couple of years thinking, you know, got to do something special. But since then, it's just become a bit of a pain. But actually in retail, you know, don't touch anything around that date because it's all go, it's all promotion, it's all lots going on, you know. So I think you're right. And especially in this day and age, you know, there doesn't seem to be a gap now between any of the key times. You know, you've got Valentine's Day, then what have we got Easter,

you know, and then you start looking at Halloween and you start looking at, you know, Christmas, it's almost like retail doesn't have the opportunity. the opportunity to breathe anymore. And that's, you know, that's for all these companies, isn't it?

[02:27] - Steve S

It's true. And there's different areas within retail as well. You know, you might have your sort of travel agents are selling stuff in January, February, that's their peak period. Most peak periods for retailers is around, as you mentioned, Valentine's Day for particular retails. I know, obviously, a common one is around the Black Friday leading up to Christmas, so November and December are normally no go for any sort of project work, at least getting, getting you know the people from the clients to help you out during those periods is nine. Impossible because they say no bau we you know it's peak we we can't be doing lots of like project work during that time.

[03:00] - James B

Absolutely no absolutely and i think i mean it's it's i mean i say it all the time, you know how important planning is you know no one's going to argue that but that is one of the other strategic things to think about in planning is when are we going to go live because it might be that you agree that based on the size the scope you know everything that you've got to do yeah we might be able to put this project live in six months or 12 months but actually what windows, what time of the year are our best options, you know, and there's, and like I said, I think in retail, it's probably the sector where there are less. So I think, and that's why it makes it even more important to plan effectively, because if you miss a date in retail, you could push yourself back six months or longer, which could be hugely costly. Yeah. So yeah, I think, yeah, we have to, I think that's probably one of my top ones is just that timing, you know, that time of the year of, you know, when we can actually switch over our systems. What are some of the other things that, you know, who we've come across in the past again around retail. Well.

[03:54] - Steve S

I suppose the other one is around stock. You know, you've got a constantly moving target there with your stock. And, you know, do you have to consider stock takes when you're leading up to cutover or just before? Or are you going to do it afterwards on the new system? So there's all those considerations as well around stock. And then you've got warehouse as well. So you could have

store stock, you could have warehouse stock as well. Now, normally warehouses, you've got a completely different system to consider as well as the ones that the store stock's in. So you've got

stock all over the place, really.

[04:23] - James B

Absolutely. And I remember we did a delivery many, many years ago when we started this, and it was our first real experience of just how critical the stock and the warehouse piece is to retail. You know, if you think about it, you know, if you do a finance migration or something else, if you have some issues go wrong, you know, you've got time to correct it. You know, there's monthly finance cycles. But in retail, you know, they're open sometimes 24-7, you know, especially online. Thank you. They can't afford to be down. They can't afford for the switchover of systems to impact their day-to-day work. You know, they have minimal blackout periods. So I think, you know, I think it's so

important when we think about dry runs, for example. You know, normally we might only have one, you know, if it's a finance migration. You know, one test, you know, we've done all our practice, we're ready to put the system live. You know, let's just do one test of that, you know, from start to finish, you know, good cutover plan. But I think it's critical in retail that you probably want to do a minimum two, even three, because you have to get it right. You can't afford to switch your systems down, push everything across, move all your stock across, and for it to not be working, and therefore the business can't sell products and they can't issue stuff out. It would cripple the business.

[05:35] - Steve S

Yeah. And as I mentioned, you've got stock everywhere. So you've got to consider the stock levels in your warehouse might be reflected on your website. So that has to be accurate for your website to run. You have your stock on your tills in your stores. You might have stock in concessions or consignments as well. And then, you know, the warehouse itself. So everything, everything is critical that you've got those stock levels right at the point of cutover. Now then, we come to another issue with retail, and that's the cutover itself. So normally, most businesses will do a cutover of a weekend when nobody's working unless they're doing reconciliation activity as part of the data migration. You can't do that with retail. The stores are open. The stores are still putting the, you know... the changes in stock and the changes in sales into their legacy systems during your cutover weekend it makes it really really difficult to find those windows which sometimes can only be hours to migrate the stock.

[06:28] - James B

No absolutely and it can be extremely you know it can be sure there was actually a scenario i remember when we did a.

Live migration in retail where they had undercooked the amount of staff they needed for that live weekend again because they hadn't done proper dry runs and prepping and it meant that actually the they had to sort of call upon the IT teams, some of the other teams, God, even, I think even the chief executive come down, and everyone was hands to the pump in the warehouse, you know, like picking, moving stock. Now, whilst on the one hand, that was fantastic atmosphere, you know, great

sort of collaboration. Hands to the pump, yeah. But then if you actually look at it financially, you think, oh my God, we're paying certain people a hell of a lot of money, you know, to do all these activities. So, you know, I think, you know, I think it's really important in retail that, you know, You take that cutover seriously. you know, definitely two dry runs. If you can do more, the better, because you need to be assured, you need to be confident that when you do it for real, it's going to work. You know, there'll always be some issue, but you can handle one or two, you can't handle 10, 20, you know, that's when, you know, that's when it could have a real massive cost impact.

[06:28] - James B

Yeah. And I think just the key is just the planning as we, you know, we bang on about it in most of our podcasts, don't we? But it's particularly critical for retail because all of those windows that we spoke about. And particularly cutover is difficult because of the ongoing transactions that are happening over the weekend and 24-7 on the website. So it's a very different sector to a lot of others.

[07:57] - James B

Yeah, and I think just and one of the other things I'll just add there is you talk about planning, of course. But I think having that sort of modern, trusted tool set, whether that's for your data

migrations or integrations. you know, that's automated, you know, that's reassured, that, you know, gives you that confidence that you can prove it with that tool set, and therefore, you know, you can go live with it. You know, that's where, you know, when we, it still happens, even to this day, you know, there is manual migration, there is spreadsheet migration, you know, retail, you know, it cannot be, you know, you will fail if you're going to go down that way. So ensuring that you have the right tool set, the right automation, the right speed of delivery, You know it's critical.

[08:43] - Steve S

Yeah because i mean your data is changing all the time because of the nature of retail particularly around the stock and you know the value of that stock so you you have to be able to have a process that you can run at any point in time and know it's going to work couldn't have said it better myself wow well.

[08:52] - James B

Good luck to those companies in the retail sector you know we're absolutely going to continue to support you and uh be behind you and uh yeah you know please feel free to reach out you know there's lots of other um areas that you know just just putting that little bit of care that little bit of extra thought I'm going to go. can really make the difference, you know, as you're transitioning to new modern systems, to cut costs, all those sort of things. Yeah, you know, good luck to them all. Yeah.

[09:15] - Steve S

All mergers and acquisitions even as well.

[09:17] - James B

It's very similar, isn't it? I'm sure there'll be another podcast where we dive into that. We might even talk about that. Yeah, absolutely. Well, no, fantastic. Well, Steve, I'll see you next time.

[09:25] - Steve S

See you next time!