Simon Prinn, director of data science and analytics, Walgreens Boots Alliance
Describe your career to date
I began my career in analytics at Stockport Council, where my report on poverty made local news, prompting a fundamental shift in service provision. This early experience got me hooked on the possibilities with analytics, so I started to look for further opportunities. Joining Boots in 1998, I became one of the first Advantage Card analysts and now lead 80 analytics specialists. I have been given a lot of opportunities to work in different analytics and IT teams, establishing a centre of excellence within Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), landing analytics in at least 17 countries.
I benefitted from the advice and support of many senior leaders and mentors along the way. This has enabled me to leverage my experience to build strong data engineering, data science and business intelligence capabilities, creating and productionising high-quality analytics products and insights. As a founder member of the new international data office, I was promoted in 2022 to director of data science and analytics.
What stage has your organisation reached on its data maturity journey?
WBA is a very large and complex organisation, with huge volumes of data. We have decades of experience using this to support and improve our customer offer, however, we are still on a journey to bring together the silos which are inevitable in established global businesses.
Tell us about the data and analytics resources you are responsible for
Data science and analytics sit within the international data office, which is a significant part of the international IT and advanced analytics organisation. We are a team of 80, covering digital, personalisation, location, space and range analytics, plus a more targeted data science capability which we deploy into deeper/broader ‘big data’ business challenges.
We partner directly with the marketing, digital and opticians leadership teams, while also delivering value into other areas of the business through our other data office business partners.
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