Next priced its software overhaul at 50 million pounds. With AI it expects 10.
@diginomica reported on 22 September that UK clothing retailer Next now expects to modernise its mainframe code, the software at the centre of the business, for about 10 million pounds.
Chief executive Simon Wolfson said: "When we last looked at this, the cost was 50 million pounds...We are now planning to start modernizing our mainframe coding, and we think the cost will be 10 million pounds."
On one feature, Wolfson said "it took it 24 minutes and 29 seconds to do what one of our coders with assistive AI would have taken 10 working days to deliver".
The full-project number is less dramatic. Counting the time spent building the agents, diginomica put the saving at 17%. Next has piloted three agents and is aiming for a 30% productivity gain by February 2028.
Its AI spending was 200,000 pounds in 2025 and 1.2 million pounds in 2026. At least 3 million pounds is planned for 2027.
Of the assistive coding tools introduced during 2024, Wolfson said they "did affect both our headcount and our cost as a percentage of sales, so we think that was very positive".
What would your board do with a 40 million pound gap between two estimates of the same job?
Sources
For your next steering committee
- 1Ask which design decisions in your programme would be expensive to reverse, and when each was last reviewed.
- 2Ask which expected benefits change if the implementation approach changes.
- 3Ask who owns a decision to change course, and where it would be recorded.
Issue 01 of the ERP LEADERS brief puts a timeline, the three-number review and six questions on one page. Read issue 01
Welcome back. · Issue 01
