London
Placing a business intelligence strategy at the heart of a global news agencies operations – and mindset.
Building on a long-standing client relationship, I worked alongside Chief Strategist Mark Wilson to design a business intelligence strategy for a global news organisation whose data capability had lagged behind both competitors and customers.
A new city
The brief for this project was not simply to “improve reporting.” It was to reposition data as a strategic asset – capable of informing competitiveness, commercial growth, editorial performance and long-term organisational direction. Over 10 weeks, we conducted in-depth stakeholder interviews, facilitated hypothesis-driven workshops, and analysed market positioning, technology architecture and internal capability. The aim was to understand not just what data existed — but how it was (and wasn’t) shaping decisions.
The resulting strategy set out a clear pathway for building business intelligence as an enabler of growth and operational optimisation – unlocking the value of editorial expertise and strengthening the organisation’s competitive position. It outlined priority capability areas, future-state architecture, and alternative execution pathways — balancing ambition with institutional readiness.
Framing the opportunity
Data has long been a weak point for this news organisation – and we both knew it. What we didn't know, however, was how to leverage data to grow in a market where competitors had a decade head start. To address this, the work began with a structured scoping phase: 30 in-depth interviews across leadership, editorial, commercial and operational teams.
“We don't have that data because of our culture of doing things on gut instinct”
“Going into a contract negotiation where our customers know far more about the use of our content than we do puts us in a very weak position”
“It’s become very 'seat of the pants' based on the years of experience. But I feel more in the dark than I ever did”
“Our organisation definitely undervalues having data experts in-house, we've been arguing about it for a long time”
“It’s like a plate of spaghetti. You have to have a real knowledge about how to connect all that and then you'll still be scratching your head”
“We don't have that data because of our culture of doing things on gut instinct”
This surfaced a familiar pattern – strong instincts and expertise, but limited shared infrastructure for turning insight into institutional learning.
The central question became:
How might business intelligence unlock value from existing editorial expertise while strengthening market competitiveness?
The challenge was not simply technological. It was organisational.
Approach
Intense and frequent stakeholder workshops are always a pleasure – this programme was no different. A core component of the programme was a series of future-oriented hypothesis workshops, which I facilitated across six areas of the business: competitiveness, commercial, strategy, editorial, organisation and culture.
Conducted remotely (and in-person due to a very fortunately timed trip to New York) participants were asked to imagine the organisation three years ahead – leaving current constraints at the door – and articulate what would need to be true for data to be genuinely embedded in decision-making. Stakeholders were prompted to leave today's situation at the door, ignore any historic frustrations and not use negatives like “we’ll never do that” or “we tried that and it didn’t work” but instead focus on what was possible and what questions they needed answers for.
These sessions proved critical.
Rather than defaulting to tooling or dashboards, the conversations surfaced something more fundamental: the organisation’s path forward depended as much on expertise, incentives and culture as it did on technology. In a “data strategy” programme, this was a pivotal shift. Workstreams began to coalesce around capability building, governance, literacy and architecture – not just implementation or technology.
The programme ran iteratively: interviews informed workshops; workshops informed synthesis; synthesis reshaped the strategic tracks.
Outcome
The most significant outcome was not the roadmap itself – though two were delivered, offering both accelerated and phased transformation pathways. It was the mindset shift for our client team. Stakeholders began to see data not as a reporting function, but as an organisational capability.
Conversations moved from “What dashboards do we need?” to “What decisions are we trying to improve?”
Our strategy provided: A clear future-state capability model; Prioritised areas for investment; Defined execution options, and ; A reframing of data as a driver of competitiveness.
Execution was scheduled to begin in Q1 2023.
More importantly, the organisation left with a clearer understanding of what it would take to embed business intelligence at the heart of its operations – and culture.
The Associated Press
Client
2022 – 2023
Year
London & New York (Hybrid)
Location
Strategist – Jack Strachan & Lead strategist – Mark Wilson
Team