Product help for retail.
We've worked inside FTSE 100 grocery retailers on the data audits that hold the business up.
Retail
Fixing the data, then passing the re-audit.
The problem.
An external audit had flagged the retailer's own-brand food data (allergens, ingredients, supplier records) as inconsistent and unreliable. The re-audit was already scheduled. The data sat across legacy spreadsheets, ageing internal tools, and an on-prem Oracle warehouse that nobody wanted to touch. Patching the audit findings line by line would have shifted the same problem to the following year.
What we did.
We argued for fixing the layer underneath, not the reports on top of it. The sponsor backed it.
The work split three ways. We migrated the warehouse from on-prem Oracle to AWS and Snowflake, so the team could query data without queueing for batch jobs. We introduced data contracts, so every upstream feed had clear ownership and quality expectations. And we built a metadata catalogue, so any team could find the data they needed without asking an engineer.
We coached the squad through the migration in parallel. Several were new to Snowflake, and a few of the data contracts ran across team boundaries that had been protected for a long time. We worked through both.
The outcome.
Outcome: the re-audit passed. Audit scoring went from around 60% to over 90%. Manual reporting time fell. Data accessibility went up across the business. The contract ended on its natural expiry.
What this shows: governance and migration work where the deadline is real and the problem is plumbing, not personality. This is the kind of engagement a Help retainer exists to take on.
Where we fit your sector.
Retail work runs on the data layer. When an audit lands or a re-audit looms, the question is whether the layer underneath holds up, not whether one more report can be patched. Reignite sits with the data team, makes the case for fixing the layer, and brings the plan that turns the audit from a threat into an asset.
- Plan: a two-week deep dive on an audit, data-contract or migration question.
- Coach: a monthly thinking partner for the in-house head of data or own-brand.
- Help: embedded senior product help on a warehouse migration or governance programme.
- Care: ongoing care for a live data tool, dashboard or catalogue already in production.