Sustainable Data Governance: How Ardoq Became the Centre of Primark’s Architecture Ecosystem

How do you run a fast-growing, global retailer with razor-thin margins while keeping technology, risk, and compliance under control? For Primark, the answer was to put Ardoq at the heart of their architecture ecosystem.

Why Primark Made the Move to Ardoq

Enterprise Architecture is an essential component of Primark’s tight-margin model, enabling them to maximize their resources, deliver more with less, and continue to expand.

This reliance on architecture required a trustworthy EA partner. However, their tool of choice wasn’t delivering on ease of data capture or speed to insight. This made it difficult to move beyond the most basic architectural assets.

As the tool headed towards the end of its life, a new CTO joined the team, seeking to expand the use of technology to areas such as risk, compliance, and supplier management. To make these goals a reality, the team knew they needed a new EA platform to be the heart of their architecture ecosystem.

Primark began with an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) phase that matched their previous service levels, proving Ardoq could deliver immediate continuity before the team matured the architecture and unlocked new opportunities to deliver value.

This required bringing in data from their previous EA tool, so they nominated advocates or super users to make decisions about what to import, what to leave out, and what could be merged. Starting with the most relevant data meant they were ready to hit the ground running and start delivering for the business.

When it came to bringing in new data, the team established a strong governance policy from the outset: data would only be imported if someone agreed to own and maintain it on an annual basis. This reduces load on the Enterprise Architecture team and ensures the architecture is aligned with business needs.

“Rather than trying to document every part of the business at first, start with a small, valuable use case.” Mark Taylor

Getting on Top of Tech Debt

Primark had challenges capturing tech debt, making it hard to track and prevent it from building up. By using Ardoq’s Technical Debt solution as an accelerator, they built the ideal foundation for documenting and measuring their debt in less than 2 weeks.

Building a Technology Lifecycle Management System

The team needed to improve how the organization’s technology was managed, including identifying out-of-date technology well ahead of time and tracking end-of-support dates to ensure a plan was in place for migration or replacement.

Using calculated fields, they built a system to prioritise, evaluate, and score technology lifecycles. This means they can see when systems are heading towards end of life and make plans for replacement or migration. The result? Planning once mired in spreadsheets and slides now takes a fraction of the time.

Creating a Digital Twin with Ardoq

Projects to renew technology estate in organizations can often struggle for funding, as it is difficult to see how infrastructure contributes to business functions. Primark is avoiding this hurdle by building a Digital Twin of the Organization (DTO) with Ardoq; combining data ownership, lifecycle management, and transparency to create a living view of how technology, applications, and capabilities connect to the business.

Gathering Reliable and Trustworthy Data

Gathering new data from across the business can take time. Ardoq’s Surveys and Broadcasts functions allow Primark to send out messages and requests for information across the organization whenever needed, automatically ensuring this data stays up-to-date.

Ardoq’s platform can easily generate visualizations of this data to tell stories for stakeholders. Freshness of data and transparency are paramount, so the data is updated in real-time, and when it was last updated is clearly displayed.

Single Source of Truth Via Trusted Data

Primark is building a technology ecosystem with Ardoq at the heart of it. With Ardoq as a single source of truth, and clear data owners established across the organization, data will be reliable and clean, ready to provide insights to the organization.

The Digital Twin is turning abstract IT assets into business value, which will make it easier for leaders to fund renewals, manage risk, and align IT spend with business goals.

Operational Efficiency: Less Admin, More Time For EA to Deliver Value

With clear data governance established and Ardoq acting as a digital twin, the team is beginning to free itself from the swamp of admin with more time to work on new EA initiatives and provide value to business stakeholders..

“A question from the internal audit team used to take days to answer. With Ardoq, it took just 10 minutes.” Mark Taylor

Future Plans

For Primark, Ardoq isn’t just an isolated platform among many. It’s the foundation of an integrated architecture ecosystem that they are developing to ensure technology decisions connect directly to business outcomes. Today, this is through their technology hardware lifecycles; tomorrow, it will be through managing the application lifecycle, modeling future states, business strategic drivers, and beyond.

About Primark

Primark was founded on a mission that everyone deserves to look and feel good – without paying more. We stand for great value without compromise, offering affordable fashion and everyday essentials that are made to last. Founded in Ireland in 1969, Primark is now an international fashion retailer with more than 480 stores across 18 countries in Europe, the US and the Middle East, employing more than 80,000 colleagues. Millions of shoppers trust Primark every week for everything from everyday essentials like t-shirts and socks, to the latest fashion trends – all at unbeatable prices. Primark is built on a belief and passion for physical stores – helping to bring high streets and retail centres to life and creating joyful, social experiences. The company is focused on driving positive change by giving clothing a longer life, protecting life on the planet and supporting the livelihoods of the people who make Primark clothes. More information can be found here.