I have spent the past nine years working with UK retailers on the unglamorous middle of their business: the systems that hold stock, orders and money together. Most of that time has been spent on ERP selection projects, implementation programmes and the rescue work that follows when either one goes wrong.
WebChesapeake is the knowledge resource I wished existed when I started. It collects the questions, frameworks and war stories that do not make it into vendor brochures, written for people who run multichannel and omnichannel retail operations rather than for software buyers at enterprise corporations.
How I work
Every article on this site is grounded in client engagements. Retailers come to me when they are about to sign an ERP contract, when their stock numbers stop matching reality, or when a go live has already slipped twice. I have sat through discovery workshops, counted stock in cold warehouses, watched integration test failures at 2am and listened to finance teams describe what the board report should really say.
Client details in the articles are always anonymised. Where a statistic is used, it is cited to a public UK industry source such as the British Retail Consortium, IMRG, Retail Economics or the Office for National Statistics so you can check the original yourself.
What I believe
- Software follows process. An ERP implementation fails when a business expects the system to fix a process it has never written down.
- Stock is the only truth. Every channel, report and margin figure depends on one accurate stock record. Most retail IT problems are stock data problems wearing a disguise.
- Scope discipline beats ambition. The retailers that succeed with omnichannel ERP ship fewer modules, migrate data properly and train people twice.
- Plain English wins. If a consultant cannot explain the architecture in a sentence, the project is already overcomplicated.
Topics covered on this site
The reading list covers the full journey: how to question ERP vendors before you buy, whether to choose a single platform or best of breed, how to keep stock levels honest, how to protect margin from returns, and what realistic implementation timelines look like.
Contact
If you are evaluating ERP systems, mid implementation or picking up the pieces afterwards, I am happy to talk through the specifics of your situation. Use the contact page to get in touch.