When Arthur Phidd – a seasoned CIO who has worked for a major US bank and an international telecoms firm – first joined Reeds Jewelers five years ago he was tasked with leading a major digital transformation at the US retailer. At the time, the company operated 89 stores across 13 US states, with a […]
When Arthur Phidd – a seasoned CIO who has worked for a major US bank and an international telecoms firm – first joined Reeds Jewelers five years ago he was tasked with leading a major digital transformation at the US retailer.
At the time, the company operated 89 stores across 13 US states, with a digital channel still in its early stages. But instead of acting as one cohesive organisation, Reeds was essentially running two businesses: A traditional brick-and-mortar operation and a separate e-commerce effort.
These silos meant customer data wasn’t connected, marketing wasn’t aligned, and decision-making lacked the precision of data-driven insight.
“We didn’t even know basic things like the average time it took to ship an online order,” Phidd admits. “That’s when I realised this wasn’t just about adding new tech. It was about changing how we viewed and used data across the company.”
Bringing sense into the equation
The first step was organisational. Phidd created a ‘Center of Excellence for Data and Decision Support’ group, assembling a cross-functional team that merged business experts with technologists.
This team began building a modern data architecture that could support Qlik Sense – Phidd’s analytics platform of choice from previous successes.
But the team didn’t start by chasing flashy dashboards. Instead, they tackled real business challenges. “We focused on fulfillment,” Phidd explains. “I asked, ‘What’s our meantime to ship?’ And no one could give me a straight answer. So, we started there.”
Reeds Jeweller CIO Arthur Phidd
Using the platform the team uncovered not only the time it took to fulfill orders, which was around 50 minutes, but also discovered inefficiencies in inventory allocation across warehouses and retail stores.
This insight had a ripple effect. “We were unknowingly robbing store inventory to fulfill online orders,” Phidd says. “Now we allocate more intelligently, preventing in-store stockouts and improving the customer experience across channels.”
Reeds Jewelers Going International
As the data foundation matured, Reeds saw unexpected results. One major revelation? Their fulfilled-by-Amazon orders were shipping internationally, including to the Netherlands and Singapore, without a formal global strategy in place.
Seeing the potential, Phidd launched an international version of reeds.com in the summer of 2023. Without any marketing, international sales organically topped a quarter million dollars, with orders from South Africa, Colombia, Canada, the UK and beyond.
But like any transformation, there were roadblocks, particularly on the cultural front. “The technology’s the easy part. The hard part is people,” Phidd asserts.
Phidd – a Doctor of Business Administration who also lectures at the University of the West Indies in Trindad and Jamacia – says that he encountered resistance from employees who had long served as the “go-to” for reports and feared that new analytics tools would make them obsolete.
“They thought, ‘If the CEO can see it on a dashboard, he won’t need me anymore.’ But I had to shift that mindset.”
According to Phidd, he applied Dr. John Kotter’s eight-step change framework, (something he also teaches), to build urgency, forge alliances and empower his team. “I told them, you don’t have to stop using Excel. But now you’ll get your data from one source of truth. That clicked.”
Glimpse into the future
Looking forward, Reeds is embracing AI and machine learning as a natural extension of their analytics journey. “We’re already using machine learning in cybersecurity and personalisation on Reeds.com,” Phidd notes. “But our next move is agentic AI; an AI assistant for our store associates.”
This AI will act like a digital copilot, surfacing personalised suggestions at checkout, offering loyalty programme enrollments or card sign-ups, much like a GPS app suggesting an alternate route. “It’s about adding value in the moment, without being intrusive,” he adds.
In sharing the Reeds story, Phidd also emphasised the importance of critical thinking in analytics. Too often, organisations become enamored with flashy dashboards without understanding what the data is telling them. “My students bring me beautiful Pareto charts,” he says. “And I ask them: ‘So what?’ Data needs to drive action, not just admiration.”
In one example, Reeds used geographic data insights to identify a growing customer base in the western US, a region where the retailer had no physical presence. This insight sparked a change in the jeweler’s real estate strategy, including the development of fulfillment pods to enable same-day delivery in key markets.
The story of Reeds Jewelers is more than just a successful deployment of a data analytics platform. It’s a playbook for how legacy businesses can reinvent themselves in the digital age. With the right mix of vision, data and cultural leadership, even the most traditional companies can unlock new value, scale globally and meet customers wherever they are.
For business leaders navigating their own digital transformation, the Reeds journey offers a powerful reminder: Transformation doesn’t begin with technology. It begins with the courage to ask the right questions, the clarity to act on what you find, and the commitment to bring your people along for the ride.
Amanda Razani was reporting from Qlik Connect 2025 which took place in Orlando, Florida earlier this month
