A New Operational View
for a National Retailer
When the ground shifted underneath a national retailer, leadership needed to see their business at a level of detail the existing system didn't support. We were honored to help build what they needed.
A Business That Needed to See Itself Differently
A large national retailer was navigating an unprecedented shift. The familiar patterns that had guided sales planning for decades — store traffic, seasonality, regional behavior — were no longer reliable. Leadership needed answers faster than the existing reporting could deliver them, and at a level of detail the system had never been asked to provide.
Planning lived in cubes that aggregated revenue at the corporate level. Non-labor cost centers were tracked separately, often in spreadsheets, with little connection to the sales view. Drivers that mattered most to the business — at the store, the department, the product — could not be modeled in a way leadership could trust. The questions were urgent. The visibility was not there.
"Leadership needed to make strategic decisions in real time. The system needed to keep up — not in months, but in weeks."
Listen to the Need. Build What's Missing.
The work began the way it always does — by listening. Sitting with Finance leadership, with the FP&A team, with the operators closest to the data, to understand not just what the existing system couldn't do, but what the business actually needed to see.
What emerged was a clear architectural goal: a driver-based operational sales view the organization hadn't had access to before — non-labor, store-level, product-level, and connected cleanly to the existing financial structure. This required careful work across the OAC Essbase platform, the EPBCS Financials and Workforce environment, and a Chart of Accounts redesign that supported the new view without disrupting what was already working.
- Architected a Non-labor Driver-Based operational sales view across all Sales accounts and Non-labor Cost Centers
- Designed visibility down to the Store level and Product level — supporting strategic decisions across categories and locations
- Led Oracle OAC Essbase and EPBCS Financials & Workforce work in parallel to keep timelines tight
- Partnered on Chart of Accounts redesign — making sure new visibility could be sustained long after go-live
- Collaborated closely with internal Finance leadership so the system reflected how the business actually thinks about itself
Every decision was made with the same standard — build it right, build it to last, and make sure the team who would carry it forward could stand behind the architecture.
A Driver-Based View Built for How the Business Actually Works
From a Standing Need to a Working Solution
A View the Organization Could Finally Act On.
When leadership turned to the system during a period when every decision mattered, what they saw was their business — at the store, at the product, at the driver — connected to the financial view in a way it hadn't been before. Decisions that had been hard to ground became conversations grounded in detail.
"Real-time visibility, where there had been aggregates. Driver-based detail, where there had been totals. A view shaped by what the team needed to see."
The work was finished. The team carried it forward — which is how a good engagement should end.
We're grateful for the trust the team placed in us during a difficult season — and for the work we got to do together.