Charles Jillings, CEO of Utilico, energized by strong economic momentum across Latin America. Watch the video here.
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"This is when a company is crap with data and why boohoo has only just done it (it’s also why ingenuity is a good idea) as companies with lots of legacy system just put off doing what best in class providers are doing.”
Haha Dan this is your speciality. Surely in your real work life you don’t apply everything with such a broad brush. So any company that doesn’t have a data lake and has some legacy systems is crap with data and inefficient …"
No you can good with data but also inefficient. Like boohoo. They have the data but it's not used for anything which is customer centric as it's not in real time. They have an ability to be good with it but the inefficiency reduces it's uses ie making it more retrospective than predictive.
There’s pros and cons to a data lake it’s not a one size fits all solution. - a data lake is the basic to what is needed to do big data with a scale and speed. Hence why THE CEO (it's amazing how I'm arguing with people yet the words i use are from the CEO's mouth but I'm wrong) is saying now this is place they now have real-time data
If a company has a large spend in IT staff then ‘projects’ are ongoing all the time. They do not have to be stated in the accounts and they are not material if the cost is ongoing spend on IT salaries because you have a team that can bespoke without the need to bring in Gardner, And Digitial, etc."
Boohoo is a tech enabled platform. They want to be telling investors they are as tech and data driven as possible. again THE CEO in Sep-21 was placing data as one of the 4 pillars for growth and telling you about it as it's where investors want you spending money! When they spend it they shout about it as it's what investors want to see (read the annual reports it tell you (from the CEO again) where they are spending the money.) The annual reports are an advertising doc to investors! They tell you not just spend but the achievements. This is how I listed them all out from 2016. It's in the narrative
"Equally can you show me the line in the accounts that says bill board advertising" - I didn't say I could it was you who said you could see spend in an earlier post
I have given you examples of how asos use the data to drive customer proposition. And you haven't once said what it is boo is doing with their data that is any good? If it's so great tell me or is it that you can't why you've avoided it 5 times now?
I'm not making assumptions about the boo building I walk past it daily and have a few friend who worek there. It's not a big site and the top two floors are as I said make up and photos
"You keep referring to IT projects. I keep telling you it's not IT spend" - no I've said anywhere in my last post. And as above I've also told you what asos can do per individual customer (curated offering, predict size, send promotions at more specific times and also use the insight to drive ranges - Brigerton example in the CME day). Yet you can't tell us what boo do with their data. Yet somehow it's better. Ok well if it's better why is there 0 use out of it that you can say?
"Why do you think it is better to develop your own IT, unless you are an IT company. I spent years working for telcos and fs companies" - industries which are known for old patch up systems! This was the example I gave with lloyds vs a starling bank. They both "work" but one is a lot more expensive and slow vs the other. I great example so thanks for sharing also shows you're just plugging gaps and not in the view of what best in class
"None of which show up as individual lines in accounts because they aren't material" - it's in the narrative! Boohoo say they monitor effectiveness of marketing via data in FY21 but none of the other more customer centric stuff hence why there is no curated edit or size prediction etc etc (but obvs you will tell us what boo's data does - or avoid for 6th time)
"You keep getting the data lake wrong as well. But, hey, it's a lovely text book term"..."Where do you think the data from the core brands is coming from? Do you think they are just magicking it up from nowhere" - no my point was is that even the data from core brands has never been great and again i'm backing up with vs peer analysis (no curated edit etc etc). Also the CEO told you that none of the core brand data was even in real time! A point you've ignored
"Go research how much salesforce developers charge on a daily basis it's evidence you don't listen" - because someone pays someone a lot of money means nothing. Show us the output from the data! You know when I pay most for a mechanic? When something is broken. You pay less for maintenance. Same with software. You hire contractors when you're building or patching you invest in training and development when it's in a good state (asos, moonpig, THG and Gymshark (40+ data science team)
Now you're an IT expert and the other week it was marketing law - that was wrong. And also change management. Wha
‘ You keep getting the data lake wrong as well. But, hey, it's a lovely text book term. What they are doing in integrating customer data from all the brands. Why are they doing it now? Well it would have been hard to do it before they got hold of Debenhams. Where do you think the data from the core brands is coming from? Do you think they are just magicking it up from nowhere’
That’s a brilliant point.
“ This is when a company is crap with data and why boohoo has only just done it (it’s also why ingenuity is a good idea) as companies with lots of legacy system just put off doing what best in class providers are doing.”
Haha Dan this is your speciality. Surely in your real work life you don’t apply everything with such a broad brush. So any company that doesn’t have a data lake and has some legacy systems is crap with data and inefficient …
There’s pros and cons to a data lake it’s not a one size fits all solution.
If a company has a large spend in IT staff then ‘projects’ are ongoing all the time. They do not have to be stated in the accounts and they are not material if the cost is ongoing spend on IT salaries because you have a team that can bespoke without the need to bring in Gardner, And Digitial, etc.
T4G there is no where you can say where the cost sit in boohoo’s P&L and the reason is is that they consolidate all the p&l lines so what you’re saying is again stuff you’d like to think but can’t substantiate
What a listed business does do is tell you what they spend money on and the big projects. That’s why you can tell where the money was spent as every year in the annual report they tell you. And I copied it all out for you! There is no spend on data and AI. If there was to a material extent they would have to tell you. Asos do. Moonpig do. THG do. As it’s a material spend. Boohoo’s spend isn’t on these areas. Search and read the marketing spend. It’s not on data heads. So verify your waffle before you start making up more stuff!
I’m not saying they aren’t run by marketing or whoever I’m saying there isn’t even the spend you are saying. Again where are these guys? They aren’t in the manchester head office as I can walk past and see!
“ data lake but never gone through with it because our data is complex”. This is when a company is crap with data and why boohoo has only just done it (it’s also why ingenuity is a good idea) as companies with lots of legacy system just put off doing what best in class providers are doing. And then just have lots of inefficiency and cost. It’s like lloyds bank vs monzo. Lloyds systems work but at an insanely higher cost and slower speed. So great example for me Wolf
T4G just missing out and not answering any of my points. Just listing software isn’t an answer
- where are these people?
- why is there no personalised offering from all this data? Actually what is it the data is doing then?
- if material why never mentioned?
- why would data be of use if never in real time (until Sep-21)
- why now sort out a data lake if it was amazing before?
- why do all these other tech businesses who are best in class all not just buy off the shelf salesforce?
Answer something rather than trying to condescending. But you won’t as you can’t answer these
“ so arguably who cares if they've got a fancy database or analytic” ermmmm Richie the answer would be the CEO. This was pillar 4 of the growth strategy in Sep-21 telling us that now they have stable and real time data they can start to use it for growth (hence why I know what T4G is saying is rubbish as the CEO told us himself in Sep-21 that before this the data wasn’t even real time!)
Do any of you listen to the investor update or know this business?
IT and marketing should be working tightly, they’re intertwined when it comes to data.
Well said Rich. A data lake is A way of doing data, not THE way of doing data. I work for a group with $2bn omni-channel turnover and our IT leaderships have faffed around with the idea of a data lake but never gone through with it because our data is complex and we have a lot of legacy systems. I’m not an IT expert by any means but know we rub along fine without one.
Plus BH are a clothing company, they don’t need to press release every time they undertake an IT project. Dan does this regularly. Takes a snippet of information and extrapolates it out as if he’s running the show and knows the warts an’ all.
I know a thing or two about the ASOS data lake. Put it this way, it didn't turn out the way it should, mostly because of TGR cost overruns. In addition, the Data Science team is pretty inefficient and more interested in academic papers than value. I wouldn't get too excited about anyone's supposed capabilities in this area. There are always issues that hamper analytics development.
A data lake is a b*ll**** concept anyway.
It's basically like saying a pool of raw data.
It's what you do with that data which matters.
You'd be hard pressed to say Boo's growth hasn't been exceptional...so arguably who cares if they've got a fancy database or analytics. There's an awful lot of time/money spent on IT by people who don't know what they're doing because they think they should be doing it. It happens in all fields and I know from experience the joy of being dragged into a meeting because the CEO/COO types have this latest greatest thing we need to use that's "only" going to cost "loads of wonga" and becomes pretty clear after 5 or 10 minutes of the presentation its the same old nonsense with some more fancy charts in slightly more rounded bubbles.
These are useful sources for shipping costs, rather than media speculation:
https://www.drewry.co.uk/supply-chain-advisors/supply-chain-expertise/world-container-index-assessed-by-drewry
https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2022/01/a-new-barometer-of-global-supply-chain-pressures/
https://www.aircargonews.net/data-hub/airfreight-rates-tac-index/
https://fbx.freightos.com/
@wolf - "spend on it projects and data doesn’t have to go through Capex and the balance sheet" agree and that's why i cut out all of the P&L narrative as well. So when the baord are saying "we have spent on technoilogy and this is why" I listed all those exercises that they spent the money and time on
"Your basis seems to be that that it’s not happening because BH haven’t mentioned it on an investor call and ASOS have" - no my basis was that I pulled out all the narrative of technology spend since 2016. Also the CEO told you in Sep-21 that they have only just built a data lake (it's data extraction 101)
@T4G - apart from a cruddy article and you saying you went on a interview once there is nothing to support what you're saying re boohoo's data
I can tell you asos's is better and give examples such as go on the app and the items you see are curated for you. PLT can't do this. It's just "what's new"
Boohoo didn't have a data lake so how on earth were they doing anything in data before? You've never answered that
Asos have all these tech guys - so do THG and so do Moonpig. All these tech businesses have data teams in the hundreds and where are boohoo's? I mean where would they even be? The Manchester office is tiny and the top 2 floors are for modelling and then buying so you couldn't have more than 20/ 30 tops if the rest were just data analysts
"You clearly have never seen how sales force is configured for its individual clients" - so please tell me why asos, THG and moonpig have 100's of these guys yet boohoo got this for jsut a salesforce fee? The board of all these guys should be fired if it was that easy! It's not just having the data it's having all the heads to read it and make it useful
https://www.economy-ni.gov.uk/news/asos-create-over-180-jobs-northern-ireland-new-tech-hub - 184 being added
Where are boohoo's heads on this? They aren't in Manchester
I mean listen (and please do) to THE CEO of the business JL. At the sep-21 he says that the upgrade to the data lake is now the first time that they can have data and reporting in real time! I mean come on! Asos have had that years!
"you don't recruit a Crm and retention function without data" - a CRM is just basic contact info. Does it know preferred size or suggest this to customer? No. Does it curate the products they see? No Does it tier when a customer gets an app notification based on when they most often open app? No (I get asos notifications at different times to gf)
So why not tell us - where these data analyst are? Why they have never been a material part of IT spend (since 2016)? Why everyone else has 100's of them? How on earth the data was useful when not in real time or in a data lake?
I fully understand the power in data and that's why I'm saying it's annoying that there has been huge underspend here! I want more spend and heads in this area
Dan - spend on it projects and data doesn’t have to go through Capex and the balance sheet. Especially if it’s just something you do as part of your core business and you are not outsourcing or purchasing external software and or consultancy.
Many companies run big IT spends through P&L. Your basis seems to be that that it’s not happening because BH haven’t mentioned it on an investor call and ASOS have.
Ragtrade, who is this ex Fin Director of Amazon, FB..., Cambridge Blue etc.?
T4G, you know how this ends, it doesn't.
He is one of the top brokers in the UK, keeps quiet about it but in his early years George Soros mentored him, he also was Financial Director for Amazon, Facebook, Tik Tok and YT, he is the Author of the multi million selling books The Platform and Always in Hindsight, which were cited as the inspiration for THG. In the Gym one day, he shared some weights with Ben Francis, this is said to have set the seed that led to Gymshark. He is influential on the catwalks and always gets a front seat at London Fashion Week, he was a Cambridge Full Blue and is President of the Hawks Club and lastly is never never ever knowingly wrong, follow him and you can't go wrong, only downside is that he is nervous of fleas.
T4….as Rag advised…just don’t bother….he will argue for arguments sake.
T4G so boohoo is miles ahead in the world of data as it uses salesforce? An off the shelf product?
There is no propritory tech in boohoo's data engine
They have never updated that they have invested in heads here (none of the IT spend in the last 4 years makes any mention of data projects - I listed them all out)
As I say even the basics like a data lake only happened this year
But "Oh tehy have sales force" a pet shop can get sales force
Look at other comparitors
THG - "As of 31 December 2019, THG had over 550 full-time technology and infrastructure employees and a further 450 THG Ingenuity employees, representing over 20 per cent. of THG's total headcount"
Asos - is c.200 or so
Moonpig - "The Group employed a team of 141 data scientists, analysts, product developers and software engineers as
at 31 October 2020, and operates a proprietary technology platform which has been recently upgraded over
the course of the years ended 30 April 2019 and 2020 to accelerate the optimization of the customer
experience"
and your "evidence" on boohoo is what they tried to hire one subcontractor in 2016!
Come on pull the other one. Where is the spend? It's never mentioned and it's not in intangibles. So why do all these other businesses spend all these millions and hire all these staff and boohoo nailed it just getting salesforce!
The CEO tells you in Sep-21 how they are now starting on this journey as they now have data 101 a data lake. from the Ceo's mouth
Boohoo has retained customers by being a great brand, good proposition, being on trend with test and repeat and apps. But the true data insights isn't there. As I say try it
Tell me where boohoo has a use of data. If we go on PLT the items shown are the same.
#WolfOfWarks - it's like a lot of dodgy tat sellers from China
100% and this is what we can actually see, chuck in banned cotton from Xinjiang where 84% of Chinese cotton comes from and your into a pit of vipers trying to see if Shein has used, US have banned any garments made from cotton Xinjiang, containers with garments made from this are still sitting at ports in US and China. Its a disgrace on EU / UK for not doing likewise, quite rightly we have to categorically prove to our customers that our cotton does not originate from there or Uzbek, again a perfect storm for price hikes as demand is up, China is now having to import ton's of cotton adding to lead time and freight issues for anyone producing there !
state invisible = stay invisible
(clearly a freudian slip in this instance)
WolfOfWarks - it's like a lot of dodgy tat sellers from China....they get away with it if they state invisible enough and outside the reach of the law behind the real red wall. Get big and try to have some material presence in the west then you've got things that western law enforcement can go after.
It's not even much of a secret when it's already been raised in parliament:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9936113/How-shadowy-teen-brand-Shein-uses-algorithms-harvest-data-users.html
If you invested in Shein in an IPO, I'd expect a high chance of losing all your money, as it gets shut down for any number of reasons.
“ Add to that Shein will all be fired up with fresh capital from forthcoming IPO and being able to open more warehouses in UK and EU and US.”
Shein won’t do that as they will have to charge vat, etc.
The model works on dispatching from Asia and evading all the local taxes.
Kallumama You say the pandemic is over. What an extraordinary idea!!!
Shein keep denying they're planning to list.
(2 days ago): Reached for comment, a Shein spokesperson sent the following statement to Fast Company: “SHEIN has no plans to IPO. Our company CEO, Chris Xu, has not applied for Singaporean citizenship.”
Shein has also faced controversy with designers accusing it of stealing their work, and big brands like Levi Strauss and Dr. Martens suing it for trademark infringement. And in November, a Swiss advocacy group found Shein’s factory workers in the Guangzhou province—mostly migrant laborers—were toiling to extremes, clocking 75-hour weeks with only one day off a month.
No surprise they don't want to list. They'd get hammered for their workers and then sued for their product ;)
@icarus personal insults, lol, looks like you have no clue of Napoleon's history, lol. I have no argument with him green screened him months ago, Napoleon last year was hurling a torrent of abuse my way when i was informing the board about how Asos was ahead of the pack, his views on BH were of a cult status, now 180, always in hindsight, nuff said.
Errrrrrr, cough, my last 4 words, right there,
Come on T4G soooooooo harsh, Napoleon is an expert in absolutely everything (always in hindsight looking at statement or his fav, a spreadsheet) and bit like John Lewis Never Knowingly Wrong, this time last year he was slating Asos and worshipping at the Golden Altar of BH, judging by below he's done a complete 180, i wouldn't even bother.
Sorry change PLT for boohoo if you like. Yeah an article says. Well i guess that's it. Someone on the internet wrote and article
Job done
That fully reconciles the missing £200m!
Prior to full ownership Boohoo (in it's annual reports told you where the IT and development spend was going for boohoo and PLT seperately)
Neither of them have ever mention spend on any of the items you're saying until very very recenttly. If they were spending it and it was material (against a very low capex figure or was an adjusting EBITDA item - as it's growth spend). Then it would be disclosed. It never has been
Therefore it's not being spent in any material way. Follow the money as they say
"Asos are busy fools. If they need another 100 analysts it's because what they have aren't working effectively because their data is crap"
Are you going to point to anything to say why asos's data is rubbish? Or what magical £30m one-off spend item it was that boohoo built (although we are told the £30m was spent not on any of this - materially)
So what magical max £10m system did boohoo build? Because that alone would be worth trillions given what amazon, asos and other tech businesses have to spend annually on data processing and insight. Also that boohoo didn't even have all the data and consistent before Sep-21. So it must be some magical £10m investment
They should be flogging that!
"When it comes to delivery of online orders, faster is always better; however, we’ve found that most of the year people are willing to wait up to five days for free shipping, assuming the package arrives in good condition with the correct items."
PFS! Yeah they are right on trend for boohoo's core market. Want a real world data point? Look at boohoo's US performance and the words of the CEO and CFO. I think tehy are better placed on that target audience. Given it is their day job and 100% focus!
"It's cloud based so doesn't need massive capex" - i quoted intangible spend! Which development is!
Boohoo have never spent materially on data insight. Or they would have to tell us
£30m of intangible spend in all their history. Asos doing £100m annually
Please tell us what this magic system is (which somehwo worked pre a data lake in Sep-21)