Buying a modern tech stack without fixing the data is like rebranding a restaurant with a rat problem.
Everyone gets very excited about the new look. The menu is redesigned. There’s a “digital transformation” slide. Someone says “single source of truth” with a straight face.
Meanwhile the basics are still feral.
Jobs don’t reconcile to invoices. Inbound calls get treated like folklore. The same customer exists three times. CAC is a number that changes depending on who’s presenting. And the board pack is basically a weekly negotiation.
This is why so many stack upgrades land with a thud. The tools didn’t fail. They just got installed on top of a measurement layer nobody trusts.
The order of operations is painfully unsexy:
Agree definitions that matter to cash and margin
Create one customer and job ID that actually follows the money
Fix call tracking and attribution in any business where the phone is the checkout
Lock down ownership so “data quality” isn’t an orphaned hobby
Do that first and suddenly the tech choices become obvious, cheaper, and faster.
Skip it and you’ll end up with a very modern restaurant. Beautiful branding. Same rats.