Case study — Data & analytics · Retail
Retail Insight: a data transformation for modern commerce.
From fragmented legacy reports to one governed truth: a modern analytics backbone that gives merchandising, operations, and finance the same numbers — fast enough to use in the meeting, not after it.
Domain
Retail & e-commerce
Engagement
Data platform & BI transformation
Delivery
Chennai hub, phased migration
Status
Live — reporting continuity maintained
At a glance
1
Governed source of truth (was: many)
Sub-second
Dashboard interactions
Daily → live
Reporting freshness shift
0
Reporting downtime during migration
The context
Ten reports, ten versions of “revenue.”
The client’s reporting estate had grown organically: extracts feeding spreadsheets feeding more extracts, each department nursing its own version of the numbers. Meetings started with reconciling figures instead of deciding with them.
Shenll was engaged to transform the data estate end to end — pipelines, warehouse, semantic definitions, and the dashboards on top — while keeping the business reporting every single day of the migration.
The challenge
Fragmented truth
Sales, inventory, and finance data lived in silos with conflicting definitions and no lineage.
Batch lag
Yesterday’s numbers arriving mid-morning — too late for pricing, replenishment, and staffing calls.
Migration without blackout
Legacy reports had to keep working while their replacements were built and validated.
Trust deficit
Years of mismatched figures meant adoption would only follow demonstrated accuracy.
What we built
A governed analytics backbone, migrated without a blackout.
01
Unified data platform
Batch and change-data-capture ingestion from POS, e-commerce, ERP, and inventory systems into a governed lakehouse with medallion layering — raw history preserved, conformed marts on top.
02
Semantic layer first
One certified set of definitions — revenue, margin, sell-through — documented, versioned, and shared by every dashboard, ending the definition wars.
03
Executive & operational BI
Power BI experiences designed for adoption: sub-second interactions, mobile-ready layouts, row-level security by role and region, exceptions surfaced above averages.
04
Parallel-run validation
Every legacy report reconciled against its replacement across full business cycles before cutover — discrepancies resolved with evidence, not assurances.
05
Forecasting foundation
Demand models feeding replenishment planning, with forecasts displayed beside actuals so planners calibrate trust over time.
Architecture & stack
The results
Decisions moved from arguing to acting.
The transformation replaced reconciliation meetings with decision meetings. One truth, current numbers, and dashboards fast enough to explore live — the pattern now anchors our retail data practice.
One version of every number
Certified semantic definitions ended cross-department figure disputes.
Freshness that changes behavior
From next-morning batch to near-live visibility on sales and stock.
Adoption, measured
Dashboards embedded in daily trade meetings — the true test any BI project must pass.
Continuity through migration
Zero reporting blackout: parallel-run reconciliation protected every business cycle.
Explore the capabilities behind this work
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