BI Consulting and FP&A Automation for a Large Optometrist Chain

The project initiated when I (along with others) was brought in the help the pain the Finance organization was feeling by the multitude of last minute Financial Planning & Analysis request coming in from the Private Equity firm. Many of these were ad hoc SQL Server queries created by the Finance department to run unnecessarily complicated Excel analysis. They were complicated to the point that no one could take them over. I automated the extraction of data by bringing the SQL code into Excel's Power Query. From there I automated the data cleansing steps with Power Query and connected the tables in a data model using Excel's Power Pivot. From there on, the processes were automated and documented. The analyst just had to hit change some dates, hit "Refresh" and all the analysis was complete. The VP of FP&A was also put in charge of the "Data Vision" for the company. Due to my Business Intelligence background, I was relied on heavily and created the draft for their Data Vision that was shared with the Executive Suite. I was offered a job, but I decided not to take it.