Technology that can adapt to the ever-changing needs of ESco. Technology = people, processes and tools
Current status

Current State

Where the programme stands following the April 2026 pause what is complete, what is active, what has been parked, and what comes next.

What is complete

  • Phase 1 and Phase 2 research and evaluation stages are fully complete.
  • Phase 3 foundations and infrastructure are established: GCP and MongoDB environments configured, Crane and Harbour architecture designed. The full Single Customer View proof of concept was not completed — SCV was paused in July 2025.
  • Phase 4 Interval 1, Task 1 (project board alignment) and Task 2 (narrow proof of concept plan creation) are done.

What is in progress

  • RFP for Myriad replacement, revisiting the Phase 2 question with three additional years of context: do we need to build custom software, or buy an off-the-shelf subscription management platform? With the Myriad contract ending and licence costs rising, this is the active priority.

What has been parked

  • Phase 4 promo code proof of concept delivery, the planned promo code build has been paused following the Anthem demo in April 2026. The demo produced useful learnings but not enough commercial signal to justify continued investment at this stage.
  • Single Customer View as a standalone product, full-scale development halted due to weak market demand. The underlying architecture it validated remains intact.
  • Crane architecture expansion, the Harbour and Crane integration layer was proven at POC level but was never built out beyond that. Whether to build, buy (iPaaS), or revisit entirely depends on the outcome of the RFP.
  • Microservices Audit, a review of existing microservices to decide whether to keep, improve, rebuild, buy, or retire each one. Partially completed; paused with the rest of Phase 4. Needs to resume the findings connect directly to the EOS process component.
  • Aimee AI chatbot, the agentic chatbot for the client portal was in early development and is paused with Phase 4. Its relevance depends on which direction the RFP takes.
  • Full cloud migration of legacy on-premises servers, delayed pending clarity on the Myriad replacement path. Should be actively reconsidered during the current pause the RFP outcome will determine what migration makes sense.

Open questions and risks

MongoDB as a queue system

The Phase 3 documents championed MongoDB for its flexible schema as a data warehouse. When Phase 4 pivoted to using it as a high-throughput process queue, external consultants explicitly warned that document databases are not optimised for queueing semantics and will introduce operational complexity at scale. The internal team proceeded anyway to maintain momentum. It remains an open question whether MongoDB will perform adequately under production queue loads, or whether it will need to be replaced with a purpose-built queue tool.

Build or buy for the Crane

Whether ESco builds the ETL/RTL Crane entirely in-house or procures an external iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) is still unresolved. This is an open procurement decision that will need to be addressed once the narrow proof of concept validates the overall approach.

Intermedia's roadmap for Myriad

Commercials still need to establish Intermedia's actual long-term plan and pricing structure for Myriad following the acquisition of Gordon and Gotch. This affects the urgency and investment case for the full CRM-agnostic transition.

RFP timing and Myriad contract pressure

The Myriad contract is ending and licence costs are rising. The RFP must move quickly enough to have a credible alternative assessed before renewal pressure forces a default decision. Delay risks either an unplanned Myriad renewal or a rushed procurement both poor outcomes.

What's next

The programme has paused and is pivoting. Louise has made a strategic call that ESco is a services business, not a software business — and that clarity is now the lens through which every technology decision should be made. What gets built next, and how much of it, needs to flow from that position.

The immediate question is not how to continue building but whether to build at all. The programme is returning to the Phase 2 question — which is the right alternative to Myriad? — but with three years of additional context. A great deal has changed since that question was last answered: the market has moved, the team's understanding of what ESco actually needs is sharper, and the experience of exploring hybrid build options has clarified what the constraints really are.

Two things are actively shaping that question right now:

  1. Zoho integration is live and expanding. There is an active programme of work embedding Zoho across the business, and the team is continually discovering how much is available as part of Zoho One out of the box. Before committing to building anything, ESco needs to understand what Zoho already covers and where genuine gaps remain. This changes the scope of what needs to be procured or built.

  2. The RFP for a Myriad replacement is underway. This is the vehicle for making a properly informed decision, drawing on the learnings from Phases 1–4 about what matters architecturally and what doesn't.

Louise is actively crystallising the strategy. The output of the current period should be a clear answer to: what do we actually need to build or buy, and what size of technology capability do we need to run it?

The Phase 3 and Phase 4 work is not wasted. The architecture is proven at POC level and the learnings are documented here. If the RFP leads back to a build path, that groundwork remains valid.