You Can’t Build an F1 Car Mid-Race
Why Tech Sequencing Matters
There’s a certain kind of optimism that sets in when a brand decides it’s time to overhaul its tech stack. Maybe growth has plateaued. Maybe you’re knee-deep in manual workarounds. Either way, the mood is often some version of: "We’ll fix it with the right platform."
And that’s where things start to unravel.
Because what we see time and again is this: brands trying to implement massive systems like ERP or OMS while the foundations are still shaky. Product data isn’t consistent. Workflows live in people’s heads. The spreadsheets are 12 tabs deep and nobody’s quite sure which one is the source of truth.
It’s like trying to rebuild an F1 car while you’re halfway through the race. You’re moving fast. You’re already under pressure. And you’re relying on tools that weren’t designed to operate in this kind of chaos.
Why sequencing gets overlooked
In most cases, it’s not about carelessness. It’s about urgency.
You’re growing fast and running out of room. A new system feels like the natural next step. But without a clear sequence, brands end up bolting on big platforms before they’ve got the right data or processes to feed them.
Internal teams say they don’t have time to prep. But as one CFO recently admitted during a retro: time wasn’t the issue. Capacity was. You can’t give a project your best thinking when you’re still knee-deep in day-to-day firefighting.
What good sequencing actually looks like
Let’s keep it simple. A good sequence often follows this order:
Get your data and processes straight. Standardise naming conventions. Map out workflows. Know who owns what.
Introduce foundational tools. Often a PLM or simple workflow platform to make product data repeatable and reportable.
Then implement ERP or OMS. Once the inputs are clean, the outputs start to make sense.
Trying to skip steps? You’ll end up redoing the work later. At double the cost.
Real-world lessons (from brands like yours)
One fashion brand came to us with a spreadsheet containing over 45,000 rows just for managing bundles. Each bundle was manually updated across sizes, colours, and product variants. They wanted to integrate it into their ERP. But the ERP wasn’t the problem. The spreadsheet was.
In another case, a brand was booking stock into the warehouse before it had even been created in their ERP. Why? Because they were creating products on the fly, with no shared system or workflow upstream.
In both cases, the sequencing was off. Had they stepped back and mapped it properly, the approach would have been very different.
What happens when you get it wrong
Everything slows down. Launches stall because you’re stuck retrofitting systems that were meant to speed you up. Teams get frustrated and quietly go back to their old ways of working. Confidence in the new tools drops. Data becomes fragmented. Reporting breaks down. And what started as a growth enabler becomes another headache to manage.
When the sequence is wrong, it’s not just technical debt you’re dealing with. It’s trust debt. Your team stops believing in the process. Leadership loses visibility. And momentum disappears.
How to fix it
Start small. Start honest. Before you throw another system into the mix, take a proper look at what you’ve already got. Where is your data coming from? Is it consistent? Who owns it? Are workflows written down or just passed along in Slack messages and handovers?
If the answer to any of those questions is fuzzy, pause. You may need a short-term fix (a low-code tool, a shared database, even just better documentation) to get you through the next 6 months. That’s fine. Better to stabilise now than rework everything later.
You don’t need to be perfect. But you do need to be intentional. Sequence matters more than speed.
Final thought
We get it. It’s tempting to go big. To fix everything in one shot. But big platforms don’t solve messy processes. They amplify them.
Lay the groundwork. Sequence it right. And you won’t have to rebuild the car at 200mph.