Fascinating column in @thetimes on the use of data in Timpsons by @JamesTCobbler

Reflecting on this and some of the replies...
Timpson's can do this in part because their business model is simple. There is little need to use data for "discovery", i.e., understanding the underlying system. Other companies are not so fortunate.

This leads back to the question that all analytic projects should start with - "What are you actually trying to do/understand?"
And it's amazing how often that is an afterthought compared to just implementing vast and complex solutions on the recommendation of a consultant.

In some cases, you might need complex data infrastructure. I suspect Microsoft and Amazon would find it hard to operate without one. But that doesn't make it the right choice for everyone. Because they come with costs and not just financial ones.

Where the demands of the system outstrip the capacity of the people expected to interact with it, you get problems. Where the technology assumes responsibilities that should rightly lie with individuals, you get problems.

Timpson's have found a model which doesn't burden their staff and doesn't relieve them of responsibility. Some other companies have systems which do burden their staff, but also allow the staff to evade responsibility if things go wrong.

And that's through ignorance of the wider system, which includes individuals and how they interact with the business (both customers and staff). Analytics can be used to support or it can be used to undermine. Choose carefully.

I am reminded of one of my favourite passages:

"They constantly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.
But the man that is will shadow
The man that pretends to be."

TS Eliot, The Rock

Usually I think of it in the context of the imposition of systems onto society under, e.g., socialism.

But here it makes me think of trusting staff to be "good" rather than inflicting a data platform and complex processes on them.