01Start small
Choose a coherent question and the minimum sources needed to answer it.
A focused model connecting orders, products, customers, returns, and marketing may be more valuable than a broad platform implementation with unclear definitions.
- Identify the decision
- Select authoritative sources
- Automate repeatable extraction
- Normalize and relate entities
- Validate against trusted totals
- Publish the smallest useful view
02Spend on constraints
Add technology when the current approach can no longer meet the requirement.
Data volume, refresh frequency, collaboration, lineage, access control, uptime, and analyst workload can justify more infrastructure. A vendor category by itself cannot.
Good architecture is not measured by how expensive the stack is.
03Real lesson
A footwear startup needed coherent information, not another disconnected product.
L Tech used automated export/import processes and appropriately inexpensive tooling to normalize ecommerce, returns, product, customer, attribution, advertising, and analytics information into unified business views.