CIO interview: Neil Holden, IT director, Halfords Group
Summary
The 127-year-old retailer of car parts and service, bikes and outdoor equipment is undergoing something of a technology renaissance, led by IT director Neil Holden, who joined the company in November 2017. “From a technology standpoint, the lifetime aspect of the overall strategy feeds really nicely into [determining] what data we have, how we use it for the benefit of customers, how and where it is hosted, as well as what can be done around predictive analytics and artificial intelligence,” Holden tells Computer Weekly. In addition to the data-related projects, Halfords’ other priorities for the next 12 months include the introduction of a new replenishment system and the roll-out of tablets across retail locations to facilitate functionality such as mobile payments. The company is looking to evolve from what he says is a “very structured and retrospective” dataset into “predictive and intelligent” aspects of information by combining insight from stock and merchandising with weather forecasts and other internal and external sources. According to Holden, strong competition among cloud providers is beneficial for a retailer like Halfords, and having an agnostic platform in future is also a consideration as the company reviews its strategy.