How THG fixed its Frankenstack - Ctrl Alt Lead podcast

No engineers, no downtime, no problem

E-commerce giant THG was stifled by silos and legacy. A new approach to partnerships slashed power use, costs and online fraud all at once.

Joanna Drake has spent more than six years leading IT at THG, the e-commerce platform behind brands like Lookfantastic and Myprotein. In this episode of Ctrl Alt Lead, she talks about a major infrastructure overhaul that helped the company cut costs, reduce power usage and support machine learning at scale - without taking its systems offline.

Rapid growth and a series of acquisitions had left THG with a fragmented mix of storage systems. This caused technical and operational challenges, including a lack of performance, wasted space in datacentres and rising energy costs.

Jo explains how her team replaced this setup with a single, more efficient platform across 15 global data centres. The change brought an 80% drop in power use and a major cut in maintenance overheads.

She also shares how storage improvements helped THG build Detect, a fraud detection platform powered by machine learning. It has already cut fraud by 90% and will soon be sold as a standalone product.

Jo reflects on the rollout, including a major outage on the night before Black Friday. She describes how her team and their storage partner responded quickly and effectively, and how that crisis helped strengthen the relationship.

Finally, she shares practical advice for other IT leaders on choosing the right technology partners - starting with a focus on shared values and responsiveness, rather than just cost or features.

This episode is a must-listen for any IT leader facing fast growth, ageing systems or pressure to deliver more with less.

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