Blog

Insights on data preparation, taxonomy standardization, and making enterprise AI actually work in production.

Strategy January 2025

Platform Wars Don't Matter: Why the Databricks vs. Snowflake Debate Misses the Point

Your infrastructure choice won't save you from bad data. Here's why most enterprise AI projects fail regardless of platform - and what actually matters.

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Databricks January 2025

Before You Buy Databricks: The Data Preparation Layer Nobody Talks About

Databricks is exceptional infrastructure for AI systems. But it assumes your data is already clean, structured, and semantically coherent. Here's what happens when that assumption fails.

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Case Study January 2025

The £250,000 Mistake: When RAG Projects Fail After Demo Success

The demo works perfectly. The board approves funding. Six months later, the project is quietly shelved. Here's why RAG implementations fail - and the hidden cost of skipping data preparation.

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Energy Sector January 2025

Energy M&A Is Broken: Why Asset Taxonomies Derail Integration

Traditional oil & gas companies are acquiring renewable portfolios at unprecedented scale. But they can't integrate what they can't classify. Here's why energy sector M&A fails at the data layer.

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Legal Sector January 2025

When Knowledge Management Becomes an Operational Drag

Associates struggle to find precedents. Email attachments never reach knowledge bases. M&A teams recreate data room structures. AI tools underperform. Here's why informal taxonomies create friction.

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Banking January 2025

Why Banks Can't Deploy AI: The Data Taxonomy Crisis

70-80% of banking AI projects fail due to taxonomy chaos across 30+ years of systems. Basel III stress tests, Customer 360, and risk reporting all break at the same point.

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Manufacturing January 2025

From 24 Months to 16 Weeks: Fast-Track M&A SKU Integration

Traditional integration: 127,000 incompatible SKUs, 24-month timeline, £15M stranded inventory. FireCherry's systematic approach: 16 weeks using superior taxonomy technology.

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Hospitality January 2025

From Spreadsheet Chaos to Strategic Intelligence: How Hotel Groups Unlock Analytics

Multi-property hotel groups maintain thousands of spreadsheets because taxonomies don't align. Portfolio analytics impossible. Executive dashboards 3 weeks stale. GenAI projects fail. Here's the solution.

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Retail January 2025

Multi-Format Retail's Data Fragmentation Crisis

Multi-format operators run convenience stores, supermarkets, forecourts, and wholesale. But incompatible product taxonomies make cross-format analytics impossible. CFOs can't get answers in real-time.

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Equipment Hire January 2025

The €5M Utilization Gap: Why Equipment Hire Groups Can't See What They Own

Regional hire company acquires competitor with 20+ depots. Several months later can't answer: "Do we have a scissor lift available?" 25,000+ pieces coded differently. Equipment taxonomy chaos destroys M&A value.

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Cruise Lines January 2025

Why Cruise Lines Can't Analyze Onboard Operations: The Ship-to-Shore Data Gap

15 ships with unified shore-side booking systems. But onboard operational data lives in ship-specific formats. Guest spending, service metrics, inventory consumption trapped in silos. Shore-side can't analyze what drives onboard revenue.

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Financial Data Providers January 2025

The Data Provider's Paradox: Why Financial Data Companies Can't Analyze Their Own Operations

Financial data provider serves 30,000+ clients with market data and analytics. Grown through M&A. CFO asks: "What's customer churn by product line?" Answer: "Can't calculate reliably-taxonomies don't align across acquired platforms."

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Insurance Brokers January 2025

Why Insurance Brokers Can't Calculate Client Profitability: The Post-M&A Policy Taxonomy Crisis

Insurance broker completes 50+ acquisitions in a year. Six months later, CFO asks: "What's profitability by line of business?" Finance responds: "Can't calculate reliably." Different policy taxonomies, claims coding, commission structures across acquired firms.

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Private Equity January 2025

Why 70% of Buy-and-Build Strategies Underperform: The Data Harmonization Problem PE Firms Discover Too Late

PE firm acquires software platform for £200M. Investment thesis: 5-7 bolt-ons, exit at 16x in five years. After three add-ons, synergy realization stalls at 50% of plan. Customer data uses four ID schemes. Product taxonomies don't align. Platform CEO can't answer: "Which customers should we cross-sell?"

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Platform January 2025

FireCherry vs Neo4j: Graphs Are Not the Point

Graph databases answer "how is data connected?" FireCherry answers "what does this data mean, who defined that meaning, and how does it safely evolve?" Graphs store meaning. FireCherry governs it.

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Logistics January 2025

Why Global Logistics Companies Can't Calculate Customer Profitability: The Post-M&A Service Taxonomy Crisis

Global freight forwarder acquires $14B competitor. Deal promises $800M in synergies. Eighteen months later: only $360M realized (45% of target). Customer data uses incompatible ID schemes. Service taxonomies don't align. Finance can't calculate true customer profitability.

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Technical Deep Dive January 2025

The Taxonomy Gap: Why Enterprise Codesets Need Formal Specifications

Most organizations rely on informal classification systems that exist only in institutional knowledge and undocumented Excel files. Here's why that breaks enterprise AI - and what formal taxonomies look like.

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Snowflake January 2025

Refining the Fuel: Making Snowflake Cortex AI-Ready

You bought a world-class engine. Snowflake Cortex provides exceptional AI infrastructure. But engines need refined fuel, and your organizational data isn't AI-ready yet.

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BigQuery January 2025

Beyond the Infrastructure: Why BigQuery RAG Needs Human-in-the-Loop Prep

BigQuery processes petabytes serverlessly. Gemini integration brings AI directly to your data warehouse. But scale doesn't fix semantic problems, and SQL won't clean your taxonomies.

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Agency Strategy January 2025

Why AI Agencies Outsource RAG Data Prep (And Why You Should Too)

Your ML engineers are your most expensive resource, and they hate data plumbing work. Here's the cost arbitrage that makes outsourcing data preparation a strategic advantage.

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Energy Sector January 2025

Digital Twins Need Clean Data: Why Your Plant's AI Project Is Stalling

IoT sensors + messy taxonomies = failed digital transformation. Energy operations need standardized asset classifications before AI can optimize anything.

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