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Case study · Retail & eCommerce

One price list, ninety stores, four countries

A retailer running ninety stores across four countries had four versions of every product and no reliable group position until the end of the month. We consolidated onto Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations with one master and local rules on top.

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Engagement · Programme & rollout

Retail consolidation where the stores cannot stop trading.

Industry
Retail & eCommerce
Solution
Centralised retail management
Platform
Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations
Engagement model
Dedicated programme team
Scope
Product, pricing, store ops, finance
Estate
90 stores, 4 countries
Constraint
Offline-capable point of sale
Target
Same-day group position

Outcomes

What centralisation is actually worth

A single master is not an end in itself. These are the things it bought.

  • Same day Group trading position, down from 11 days

    Store sales, margin and stock post into one ledger continuously rather than being consolidated from four regional systems after month end.

    Measured from period end to reportable group position

  • 4 hrs To push a price change across the estate, from 9 days

    Pricing is set centrally with local rules applied on top, so a promotion reaches every store and channel in one action rather than four regional exercises.

    Measured from approval to live across all stores

  • 100% Store trading continuity during network loss

    Point of sale holds its own catalogue, pricing and offline transaction store, so a store keeps selling through a connectivity failure and reconciles on reconnect.

    By design: offline-capable store operations

Context

Four countries, four versions of the truth

What happens when a retailer grows by region rather than by design.

The business

A specialist retailer operating ninety stores across four countries, plus a growing online channel.

The starting point

Each region ran its own systems. Product data, pricing and stock existed four times, reconciled into a group view eleven days after period end.

The trigger

The group could not answer basic questions — what a product costs to land, how it performs across regions, whether a promotion worked — until it no longer mattered.

What they wanted

One product and pricing master with regional rules on top, real stock visibility, and a group position available continuously.

Constraints

Stores cannot stop trading for a migration · tax, pricing and compliance differ per country · store connectivity is not reliable · four regional teams each believe their process is the correct one.

System

What it runs at today

The estate as it runs today.

  • 90 Stores

    On one platform

  • 4 Countries

    With local rules

  • 1 Product master

    Centrally governed

  • Same day Group position

    Down from 11 days

The engineering problem

Four problems in a regionally grown retailer

Each region solved its own problem correctly. The group inherited four solutions.

  1. The same product, four times

    When every region maintains its own product data, group reporting requires a mapping exercise that is out of date the moment it is finished.

    What we did

    One product master with regional attributes as extensions rather than separate records, so a product is one thing everywhere.

  2. Pricing changes that take over a week

    A promotion approved centrally had to be implemented four times, which meant it launched on different days in different countries and could not be measured.

    What we did

    Central pricing with a rule layer for regional tax, rounding and local overrides, published to every store and channel in one action.

  3. Stores that stop when the network does

    A cloud point of sale that requires connectivity turns a router fault into a closed store, which is unacceptable in retail.

    What we did

    Offline-capable store operations: local catalogue, local pricing, local transaction store, automatic reconciliation on reconnect.

  4. A group position that arrives too late to use

    Eleven-day consolidation means every group decision is made on stale numbers or on instinct.

    What we did

    Continuous posting from store to group ledger, with the position available the same day rather than assembled after the fact.

Architecture

How it fits together

Simplified — the shape of the system rather than every service in it.

  1. Product & pricing

    • One master
    • Regional attributes
    • Price rules

    Central governance with the local variation expressed as rules, not as separate records.

  2. Store operations

    • Offline POS
    • Local catalogue
    • Reconciliation

    Stores that trade through a network failure and reconcile automatically.

  3. Inventory

    • Store stock
    • Warehouse
    • Replenishment

    One stock position across the estate, driving replenishment centrally.

  4. Finance

    • Continuous posting
    • Multi-country
    • Group reporting

    Store activity into the group ledger as it happens.

Local variation is held as rules on a central master. That is what makes the difference between centralisation and a system four regional teams quietly work around.

Solutions

What we implemented

A central platform that the regions could actually adopt.

  • Product master

    One record per product with regional attributes.

  • Central pricing

    Base prices with tax, rounding and override rules.

  • Offline store ops

    Local catalogue and transaction store with reconciliation.

  • Inventory & replenishment

    One stock position driving central replenishment.

  • Multi-country finance

    Local compliance on a group ledger.

  • Group reporting

    Trading position available the same day.

Key capabilities

What it does day to day

Six capabilities across the retail estate.

CapabilityRunsRefreshWhat it does
Product master Central Continuous One product record with regional attributes
Pricing Central On approval Central prices with regional tax, rounding and override rules
Store POS Store Offline capable Local catalogue and transactions, reconciled on reconnect
Inventory System Continuous Store and warehouse stock in one position
Replenishment Automatic Daily Central replenishment against real store stock
Group finance Automatic Continuous Store activity posted into the group ledger as it happens

Integrations

How the moving parts plug in

Central where it should be, local where it must be.

Central master

  • ProductsOne record
  • Base pricingGroup set
  • Replenishment rules

Regional rules

  • Tax & roundingPer country
  • Local overridesWhere justified
  • CompliancePer jurisdiction

Stores & channels

  • Offline POSKeeps trading
  • Online channelSame prices
  • PostingBack to group, continuously

Because a price change is one central action with rules applied downstream, a promotion launches on the same day in every country — which is the first time the group could measure one properly.

Security & data

What protects a live retail estate

A rollout across ninety trading stores has no acceptable failure mode.

  • Offline continuity

    A store keeps trading through a connectivity failure and reconciles automatically.

  • Central governance

    Product and price changes controlled centrally with an approval trail.

  • Regional compliance

    Country tax and regulatory rules applied by configuration per jurisdiction.

  • Staged rollout

    Stores migrated in waves with a tested rollback, never across the estate at once.

The brief

Centralisation fails when it ignores the local reality

Retail consolidations usually fail in one of two ways: they force every region onto an identical process that does not fit local tax and trading rules, or they permit so much local variation that nothing is actually central.

We drew the line at the data model — one master, always — and expressed every legitimate local difference as a rule on top of it.

  • One product and pricing master across four countries
  • Regional differences as rules, not as separate records
  • Offline-capable stores that never stop trading
  • Continuous posting into a same-day group position

What the programme had to work around

  • 01Ninety stores that cannot close for a migration
  • 02Tax, pricing and compliance that differ per country
  • 03Store connectivity that cannot be relied on
  • 04Four regional teams with four established processes

Process

We migrated in waves and never risked the estate

Ninety trading stores means ninety chances to take revenue offline.

  1. Stage 1

    Master data consolidation

    Four product catalogues reconciled into one master, with regional attributes preserved rather than discarded.

  2. Stage 2

    Pricing rule layer

    Every legitimate regional difference captured as a rule and validated against current live prices.

  3. Stage 3

    Pilot region

    One country, smallest store count, run in parallel until the numbers matched.

  4. Stage 4

    Wave rollout

    Stores migrated in waves with a tested rollback at each one, never more than a wave exposed.

  5. Stage 5

    Finance cutover

    Group ledger brought live once store posting had been proven in the pilot region.

Technology

Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations across four countries

Commerce and finance on one platform, with local extension.

ERP

  • Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations
  • Commerce
  • Dataverse

Retail

  • Product master
  • Central pricing
  • Replenishment

Store

  • Offline POS
  • Local transaction store
  • Reconciliation

Finance

  • Multi-country ledger
  • Continuous posting
  • Group reporting

Business impact

What changed for the group

Three things the board could see within a quarter.

  • The position arrives same day

    Down from eleven days, which changes what decisions are possible.

  • Promotions became measurable

    Same-day launch across every country made cross-region comparison meaningful.

  • Buying got leverage

    One product master means the group can finally see what it buys in total.

The result

One master, ninety stores, same-day numbers

The group trading position arrives the same day instead of eleven days after period end, and a price change reaches the whole estate in four hours instead of nine days.

Stores keep trading through network failures, which was the condition the regional teams set before they would agree to any of it.

  • Group position same day, down from 11 days
  • Price changes live in 4 hours, down from 9 days
  • Stores trading through connectivity loss
  • One product master across four countries
Talk about a project like this

What we hold to in retail consolidation

  • 01Centralise the data model, localise with rules
  • 02Never require connectivity for a store to take money
  • 03Migrate in waves with a rollback that has been tested
  • 04Prove the numbers in parallel before cutting over

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