National Janitorial and Cleaning Supplies Distributor

A national distributor of janitorial and cleaning supplies operating 25 distribution centers needed to improve channel and customer profitability while reducing operating cost network-wide
P&L was built on allocated overhead, not activity cost — no visibility into true cost drivers across channels, customers, products, or DCs
Leadership was preparing consequential decisions, including terminating a major channel partner, without data-driven validation

Time-Driven ABC Implementation: Partnered with Acorn Systems to deploy Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing; extracted SAP ERP transaction history across all 25 DCs and developed time-drivers using Little’s Law
Financial Data Analysis: Categorized thousands of G/L accounts, segmented direct and indirect cost, and built the profitability model
Whale Curve Analysis: Produced cumulative profitability by customer and channel — revealing the top 20% generating 150–300% of profits and the bottom 10% driving 50–200% of losses

Cost Savings: Identified approximately $20 million in savings from unprofitable products and processes across specific distribution centers
Customer Retention: Reversed the in-flight termination of a major channel partner — the data proved they ranked in the top third of profitability
Decision Making: Replaced allocation-based assumptions with empirical, activity-level profitability evidence
Resource Allocation: Redirected resources toward the most profitable channels and customers
Operational Efficiency: Isolated the specific cost drivers for targeted improvement