Your session explores how retailers can move from data to better decisions. Why is building strong data foundations so critical for organisations looking to scale AI and deliver faster, smarter growth?

AI gets a lot of attention, but in retail the hard part usually comes before the AI. If your data is fragmented, poorly governed or simply not trusted, adding AI doesn't solve the problem. It will help you to make decisions faster with data you may not trust. At POWER, we've been working through exactly that challenge: moving from a fragmented data landscape towards a more modern, scalable platform on Google Cloud, with BigQuery, stronger governance and better observability, while also moving from Qlik to Looker. For us, strong data foundation is about three things: trust, accessibility, and speed. People need to know where the data comes from, what it means and whether they can rely on it. And the business needs to be able to get to that data without a long chain of manual processes. Once this foundation is in place, AI becomes much more than a proof of concept. It can actually become part of how the organisation operates and makes decisions.

Retailers have access to more customer data than ever before, yet turning that information into meaningful action remains a challenge.What approaches have been most effective at POWER International in using real-time customer insights to improve decision-making and commercial performance?

One of the biggest changes we are seeing at POWER is what happens when you put a strong data foundation in place and give the business more freedom to use it. Historically, many good ideas for dashboards and analysis were effectively waiting in line for the Analytics team to build them. As we have been strengthening the data platform, governance, and data availability, we are starting to remove that bottleneck. The business can explore the data and build much more of what they need themselves, much faster. And I think that is particularly important in retail because the business is the real expert in the data. They understand the customers, the products, the commercial drivers and all the little nuances and exceptions that you simply cannot capture from the data platform alone. Our role in Data & Analytics is therefore increasingly to build the foundation, make the data trustworthy and accessible, and provide the right tools and guardrails. The business can then use that foundation to turn their own knowledge into insights and decisions. What has been really encouraging is not just the dashboards being created, but the number of new ideas and questions coming from the business. That, to me, is a much better sign of data maturity than simply having more reports. We are moving from analytics being a bottleneck to analytics becoming an enabler.

eTail Nordic brings together senior retail and eCommerce leaders from across the Nordic region. What conversations are you most looking forward to having with your peers, and what insights are you hoping to take away from the event?

I'm really looking forward to comparing experiences with other retailers on how they are making data and analytics work at scale and not just from a technology perspective, but from an organisational one. One of the things we are learning at POWER is that building the data platform is only part of the journey. The bigger question is how you enable the business to actually use it. How do you give people enough freedom to explore and create, while still maintaining trust, governance and a common understanding of the data? I'm particularly interested in how other retailers are approaching that balance, and how they are moving from Analytics being a centralised service that builds everything for the business, towards a model where the business can get much more value from data themselves. And, of course, I'm curious about AI, but less about the latest shiny use case and more about what is actually delivering value in retail. I'd love to hear what others have learned, what has worked, what hasn't, and what they would do differently if they were starting the journey again.