How a Leading Facilities Services Provider Achieved Greater Financial Visibility & Streamlined Planning Through Advanced Financial Modeling

About The Client

Industry: Retail & E-Commerce

Scope: Nordstrom is a leading global department store retailer known for its high-quality fashion, beauty, and luxury goods. Nordstrom operates an extensive network of brick-and-mortar stores and a robust e-commerce platform, offering a premium shopping experience. The company focuses on customer service excellence, data-driven merchandising, and operational efficiency to drive profitability and growth.

Client Challenges

• The client financial close process was inefficient, taking 6-7 days due to manual data consolidation and fragmented reporting, delaying critical financial insights
• The company's financial reporting lacked integration across planning scenarios, making it difficult to compare actuals to budget and forecast data, leading to inconsistencies in decision-making
• KPI tracking and variance analysis were not standardized, resulting in different teams using varying financial metrics and creating discrepancies in reporting
• Headcount and capitalized labor costs were not tracked in a consolidated manner, making it challenging to analyze budget variances and workforce planning effectively
• These challenges increased the finance team's workload and delayed reporting, making it difficult for leadership to gain real-time visibility into financial performance

Key Project Elements & Deliverables

Systems & Tools Used: Microsoft Excel for financial analysis and reporting, Oracle Panther for extracting cost center P&Ls and consolidating financial data

Timeline: 2-month engagement with a focus on optimizing financial close processes, automating key reports, and improving financial visibility

Data Integration: Consolidated cost center P&Ls from Oracle Panther into Excel to enhance accuracy and efficiency

Key Deliverables: 

• Streamlined month-end close process, reducing the timeline from 6-7 days to 5 days
• Integrated multiple planning scenarios to improve financial visibility
• Automated KPI tracking and variance analysis to ensure consistency across finance teams
• Developed headcount and capitalized labor tracking models

Project Objectives & Business Needs

Key Project Objectives: 

1. Optimize the month-end close process by consolidating financial reports into a unified framework, reducing the timeline from 6-7 days to 5 days
2. Improve financial planning and forecasting by integrating multiple plan scenarios, enabling leadership to make more data-driven decisions

Business Needs: 

• Streamline financial close process to reduce time required for month-end reporting
• Improve efficiency in financial data consolidation
• Enhance financial reporting capabilities to integrate multiple planning scenarios
• Support strategic decision-making with better financial insights
  

Solution Outline: The project focused on streamlining the financial close process, improving reporting accuracy, and automating key financial workflows:

1. Financial Close Optimization: Reduced the monthly close process from 6-7 days to 5 days by consolidating key financial reports and improving data accuracy
2. Enhanced Reporting Structure: Integrated multiple planning scenarios, including annual budgets and biannual forecasts, allowing leadership to make more informed strategic decisions
3. KPI & Variance Automation: Automated KPI tracking and variance analysis, ensuring all teams used a standardized reporting methodology, reducing discrepancies in financial metrics
4. Workforce Cost Transparency: Developed headcount and capitalized labor tracking models, improving visibility into budget variances and workforce planning across internal and external resources

Solutions & Outcomes

Solution Outline
The project focused on streamlining the financial close process, improving reporting accuracy, and automating key financial workflows:

Project Outcome Summary

1. Time Reduction: Shortened the financial close timeline by ~30%, enabling the finance team to focus on value-added analysis rather than manual data reconciliation
2. Improved Reporting Accuracy: Standardized KPI tracking and variance analysis, reducing financial discrepancies and ensuring all teams worked from a single source of truth
3. Enhanced Decision Support: By integrating multiple planning scenarios, Nordstrom's leadership gained a clearer view of financial performance across different time horizons
4. Workforce Planning: Improved tracking of headcount and capitalized labor costs supported better budget management and resource allocation