In 1989, Marks & Spencer faced a challenge. Their stores closed on Sundays, leaving any unsold fresh produce, like strawberries, to go to waste by Saturday night. They turned to new technology—the IBM PC and the revolutionary C++ programming language—to develop a solution that could predict strawberry sales. They tasked a young specialist—someone who actually understood PCs—to build a neural network. That person was me.
I pulled in every piece of data available in the M&S universe—internal sales data, external factors, everything—poured it into the model, and let the neural network get to work. The result? My model failed to outguess the simplest predictor: just repeating last week’s numbers. But this failure planted a seed. I knew the potential was there. The problem wasn’t the technology; it was the limitations of our data and our ability to process it fast enough.
Fast forward 35 years, and it’s clear how far we’ve come. That early experiment taught me two critical lessons: First, the quality of the question is key. In AI, this principle has grown into what we now call prompt engineering. Second, data is everything. One small, seemingly irrelevant piece of data can unlock massive insights if it’s the right piece.
Just like in 19th-century London when John Snow cracked the cholera puzzle by noticing a single overlooked data point—people drawing water from a specific pump—we've learned that more data gives better answers. For Consumer Intelligence, this insight is at the heart of our success. Over the past decade, we’ve built a vast reservoir of data. Every year, we gather insights from tens of thousands of car and home insurance buyers, collecting millions of price points and pairing them with rich consumer data verified for accuracy.
This vast pool of data is more than just numbers—it’s a treasure trove of potential, waiting for the right questions. And now, we’re asking those questions. Through AI, neural networks, and machine learning, we are transforming our ability to provide groundbreaking insights to our clients. We're no longer just predicting strawberry sales—we’re helping companies navigate an increasingly complex market with precision pricing strategies.
At Consumer Intelligence, the future is bright. With machine learning on our side, we are unlocking deeper insights, faster responses, and smarter solutions for our clients. Every piece of data holds the promise of innovation—and we’re here to make sure our clients stay ahead of the curve.
Interested to find out how you can leverage our data to understand the next steps to maximise your opportunities?
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