In this debut episode, we have the binary10’s founders, James Blake and Steve Smales, the power duo of data migration! With decades of experience between them, they reflect on the journey of building binary10, lessons learned from complex migrations, and what the future holds for the industry.

Expect real talk, a bit of humour, and plenty of insight for anyone in the complex world of data migration.

🎧 Subscribe, listen in, and join us on this journey!

In this, we discussed:

• The birth of binary10

• Methodologies, madness, and making it work

• Why DM failures cost millions, and how we avoid them

• Growing pains, pandemic pauses, and powering through

• Our ambitions to take over the whole data migration world

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!

[00:00] - James B

Hi, I'm James Blake, Chief Executive at binary10 and welcome to The Data Migration Podcast. So, Steve, we are here on our first podcast. Introductory podcast for binary 10. So, welcome along. I'm James Blake. I'm CEO of binary 10. And Steve?

[00:20] - Steve S

I'm Steve Smales, and I'm the COO. Don't know if that's pronounced C-O-O. Yeah. Pigeon, isn't it?

[00:25]- James B

Coo is a normal expression for that! Yeah, so we're gonna be taking you through a series of podcasts, talking a little bit about binary10, a little bit about what we do, but really getting into data migration, which is our topic of expertise, we think. And it should be quite good. It should be quite, you know, it'd be good for people to understand some of the challenges we have with data migration, what we're looking to do in the future, you know, how we can help. And hopefully we'll get some guest speakers in and, you know, we'll try and make them somewhat entertaining as well. It's not always the...

[00:54] - James B

easiest of subjects to make entertaining, but we'll give it our best shot. But so, birth of binary10, where did it all begin? Well, I mean, I can start off, so I think this actually happened, what, 2017, we established binary 10. Was it nearly, nearly...

[01:12] - Steve S

It was a long, long time ago now, wasn't it?

[01:14] - James B

Eight years ago now. It's been a long journey, but I do remember it well. mean, you know, me personally, I've always had a career in IT, started off very technical.

[01:22] - James B

And I remember going to a retail client for a contract where I was leading a migration, and you know, met you, didn't I, Steve? And it was the first time really that over a few years I had honed a methodology for data migration a way that I wanted to deliver it and this was kind of the first time that I got to do that and Steve was working alongside me on the project we had another person helping us deliver as well and I think that you know I remember that project so fondly you know it was a project that

[01:52] - James B

That somehow we delivered it, just the three of us, when really it was a project for many, many more. But it just proved that the methodology, know, how we want to deliver DM worked, you know, and the fact that, you know, you, Steve, have got like a vast experience of data and functional and all this sort of thing. And you were the first person that was able to challenge that methodology and, you know, even make it better, and this can work. And literally it went from, I remember we would talk about...

[02:19] - James B

there's a business here. You know, we keep hearing of these horror stories of DM not being delivered.

[02:25] - James B

And it must have been a couple of conversations, brief, should we do this? Should we try and set up an organisation that really pays attention to data migration? Because we're passionate about data. And you hear these horror stories of millions and millions of pounds being wasted in both private and public sector projects. And we know that we can prevent that. We know that we can help it. So yeah, I think that's where it all started, wasn't it?

[02:48] - Steve S

Yeah, we've both independently been working for many years in IT. I've been working in IT for more years than I'd like to remember, mainly starting off in a technical background, then becoming functional and project management. And I'd done many data migration projects as part of that and seen some others had gone horribly wrong. Thankfully, I wasn't involved in those. But no, I think we've both done a lot of data migration before as part of companies, other consultancies. But when we started together at that well-known High Street retailer, which remains nameless. I think we both had sort of strong ideas about how it should be done. We had a huge amount of similarity in our way we thought we should do it. Your methodology that you'd worked on was very similar to what I'd been doing. And we just put our heads together, really, didn't we? It's come up with this methodology and actually tweaked it over the years as well, where we thought necessary. And it just seems to work.

[03:49] - James B

Absolutely. And I think you really helped me because, I think I was, you know, I always had it in the back of my mind to do this, but it was just having that encouragement or that kind of approval from a peer that I well respected. Yeah, then it kind of grew from there, didn't it?

[04:09] - Steve S

Yeah, when you came up with that idea of the consulting, it's something I'd toyed with before, just as a general system implementation consultancy many years earlier, but never got off the ground, because I couldn't get the people I wanted to be involved in that to come along for the ride. I think a few people were nervous about taking that next step. But when you came up with the idea, and I thought, yes, it's a feasible idea.

There aren't that many specialist data migration consultancies around that have got the expertise that we had. And I just thought, yes, I can give it a go and see if we can make a go of this. So when you came up with the idea, I thought, yeah, I'm fully on board with that. Let's give it a go and see what we get to.

[04:48] - James B

And I think I remember speaking to other people in that organisation, and we were telling them about doing this. And we got so much positivity and so much backing. And I think that came down to the fact that we've delivered, obviously, many, many more data migrations since then. But it was definitely one of those clients that had a culture that, you know, they didn't understand data migration. That wasn't their world. That's not what they did. And actually, by the confidence levels we had and take holding their hand, taking them through it, you know, they think we were, we became very well respected within that organisation, you know, and a very trusted, you know, sort of individuals. And that was the other thing that made me realise, God, you know, this must be happening all over the place. You know, this is one retail organisation, you know, and even in those organisations that are more technical, they still struggle with data migration. So, you know, I think, of course, there was a leap of faith, a little bit, you know, we didn't know if this was going to work. And, you know, we spent many years, you know, just focusing on the client and ensuring we deliver, which we have. But yeah, definitely, it was definitely born back in that retail space, wasn't it?

[05:49] - Steve S

Yeah, and I think it's a testament to what you're saying there about the fact that we became sort of respected for what we were doing. I think what was really telling was people who eventually left the organisation to move to other retailers, mainly, kept calling us back, didn't they, and bringing us in for projects that they're new employees, employees rather. So, I mean, that was really nice. Think, yes, we've actually made a good impression here.

We have done a good job, and when the subject of finance transformation or system upgrade or have you know new systems when people started talking about data migrations, like ah yeah those guys absolutely really well on that let's call them up yeah that's proven isn't it.

[06:34] - James B

The IT director that worked for that retail company, I remember we we took him through, you know, some of our approach and what we're doing and he just commended us and he was like this is super impressive, this is fantastic and since then, you know through through work of mouth and through his word of mouth, know, that that's brought us to the projects where we've been able to help other organisations. So I think that's a testament really, that, you know, we were definitely onto something. And I'm so glad because I don't think we've looked back, you know, even though we've been through Covid, as is everybody, which was affecting us, but it didn't stop us. You know, we're, you know, we remain passionate about, you know, just preventing data migration disaster and just delivering these projects, you know, on time and to value, which is, which is super important.

[07:09] - James B

Yeah, obviously, COVID was bad, and we lost a lot of projects, we lost all our projects because everything is shut down. And some of those projects weren't resumed after COVID, because obviously, it affects different companies in different ways. But yeah, we've managed to sort of get back on the upward slope after that, heading back up to many projects running at the same time. And that's gone really well. We've, I suppose, expanded into different sectors as well. started off as retail. We've now gone into higher education, central government, manufacturing, all sorts of different sectors.

[07:46] - James B

Yeah, and I think that was always one of the big kind of pushes, wasn't it? The fact that, you know, there's many consultancies out there that are very dedicated to one sector or one system, whereas we feel that we can apply this methodology and toolset to all sectors, to all systems. You know, it's definitely a one-size-fits-all all. So, yeah, so I think, you know, and what's great is there's still more exciting times to come. You know, we want to grow, we want to get bigger, we want to spread the word. You know, we want everyone, you know, okay, we won't get ahead of ourselves. Definitely UK, you know, and then the world to be able to do these things. Take over the world. Yeah, maybe we'll see. We'll see what we can achieve. No, and that's what these podcasts are about. You know, we're going to have lots of sessions where we really get into some of the middle of DM, which we hope will be helpful to people out there that are going through data migration projects. But also we want to, you know, we want to let you into our world a little bit and talk a bit about, you know, how we're growing a business and what challenges come along with that, specifically in the IT world. So yeah, we hope it's going to be, you know, we hope these podcasts are going to be informative, but also, you know, we can have a little bit of fun.

[08:49] - Steve S

A little bit of fun, when we try to get the United Nations to authorise the International Data Migration Day that we came up with. 23rd of May. Yeah, we've not had much luck getting that pushed through by the UN yet, but we'll keep trying.

[09:03] - James B

But we'll keep trying when we will keep trying. But no, but there you go. That's how it's all started. And let's, we'll see where the journey takes us. No, thank you, Steve. And yeah, we'll see you next time.

[09:12] - Steve S

Yeah, see you next time!

[09:13] - James B

Thanks so much for joining us on our podcast. If you'd to know more, please visit us at binary10.uk.com. And if you'd like to come and see more of our podcasts, please subscribe.