Building an Intelligent Enterpise...and other things...

Eddie Short returns to Data Chat — a former Chief Data and Analytics Officer at BAT, Aon, and Telefónica O2, and builder of Capgemini's and KPMG's data practices — now embedded at Foster + Partners, taking the world-renowned architecture firm through a data and AI transformation.

In this episode, Iain and Eddie cover:

• Why "context engineering" is replacing prompt engineering — and what that actually looks like in practice, from architectural design options to construction as-built data
• Why architects (and by extension, contractors) are sitting on huge amounts of reusable data — and why treating everything as bespoke is costing the industry efficiency
• The "faster horse" trap — why automating existing broken processes with AI just gets you a faster horse, not the car, train, or plane the business actually needs
• Why AI transformation has to be CEO-led, not delegated — and why most C-suite leaders got to the top as brilliant operators, not change leaders
• The case for a Chief Decisioning Officer (CDcO) — a role above and different from the CIO/CTO, focused on decisions and outcomes rather than platforms and infrastructure
• The retail parallel — how a Romanian retailer went from nascent digital capability to outperforming Tesco, Sainsbury's, and Asda in a single year, and what that means for UK construction
• Breaking the "month-end" habit — why waiting six weeks to see payment runs and contract certificates is a rear-view-mirror approach construction can't afford, and how other industries moved to daily, near-real-time decisioning
• The GP surgery provocation — Eddie's analogy for why "industry knowledge" can sometimes be a barrier rather than an asset when reimagining how work gets done
• Corporate inertia — why it's the real enemy, not the technology, and how outside perspective can ask the "why" questions insiders are too close to ask

A candid, no-nonsense conversation about what it actually takes to build an Intelligent Enterprise — and why construction is roughly 20-25 years behind where professional services was in the 2000s.