Company
Macy's
MY ROLE
Product Design Lead
SCOPE
Strategic Migration & Redesign
IMPACT
4.2M Active Learners
The Real Problem
01
The “Shadow Cost” Paradox
Managers were making category decisions based on net costs that didn't account for back-end logistics and regional distribution variances, leading to phantom profit loss.
02
Latency in Leverage
Vendor negotiations were reactive. By the time a cost
increase was identified and analyzed, the opportunity for
strategic push-back or SKU substitution had passed.
03
Trust Deficit
Different departments (Merchandising vs. Finance) utilized different data truths. This created organizational friction rather than unified strategic action during planning cycles.
04
Interface Cognitive Load
The existing technical interfaces required "spreadsheet gymnastics." Users spent 80% of their time cleaning data and only 20% actually analyzing it.
Mapping recurring patterns
Identifying latent behavioral loops across millions of daily Kroger transactions to standardize architected responses.
Surfacing Tradeoffs
Exposing the friction between operational efficiency and customer-centric flexibility in the fulfillment engine.
Designing shared mental models
Creating a visual and conceptual vocabulary that allowed product, engineering, and logistics to align on success metrics.
Why This Was Hard
Conflicting cost signals
Balancing short-term labor costs against long-term customer lifetime value in a high-volume low-margin environment.
Legacy rigidity
Interfacing with 20-year-old mainframe systems that were never designed for the velocity of modern digital grocery.
Data silos
Bridging the intelligence gap between supply chain logistics and the digital storefront experience.
Outcomes & Growth
From fragmented inputs to automated strategic outcomes.
Legacy Friction
Manual intervention points, fragmented data entry, and reactive decision cycles.
Strategic Pivot
Unified logic layer translating business intent into system-level executable rules.
Outcome Engine
A decision layer that automatically optimizes picking paths, resolves substitutions, and allocates inventory and acting on the right outcome before a human has to ask for it.
Making Time & Risk Implicit
It wasn't the data. It was the delay between a cost change happening and anyone being able to act on it.
Historical cost changes
Buyers are making pricing decisions based on memory and spreadsheets, not patterns. There's no shared view of what's happened and why.
Upcoming cost changes
By the time a cost shift is visible, the window to act on margin has already closed. Teams are reacting, not anticipating.
Risk Exposure Tracking
No one knows how much is actually at risk right now. Cost vulnerabilities sit invisible until they become a financial problem.
Transparency isn’t just about showing data; it’s about making the consequence of time unavoidable.
This was not a reporting artifact. It operationalized shared decision logic across divisions.
Standardized cost interpretation
Eliminating semantic drift across disparate regional procurement teams through a central logical definitions layer.
Unified GTIN relationships
Automated mapping of complex manufacturer hierarchies ensuring price parity and rebate eligibility accuracy.
Surfaced downstream impact indicators
Predictive modeling that visualizes how minute upstream shifts cascade into shelf-edge margin volatility.
Cycle Optimization
Reduced end-to-end processing time by centralizing disparate data streams into a single, actionable truth source.
Reconciliation Efficiency
Automated variance detection and resolution workflows, minimizing manual intervention in complex financial audits.
Timing Alignment
Synchronized operational schedules with financial reporting windows to eliminate critical data lags.
Structured Auditability
Established a permanent, immutable digital trail for every organizational decision and data modification.
Building for the next billion.
Interested in how we leverage modular architecture to drive enterprise-wide transformation? Let's discuss your next system.