Back in 2023, a regional restaurant chain approached us with scattered financial data across twelve different systems. Their monthly reporting took three weeks to compile, and by then, the insights were practically useless.
Instead of pushing our standard dashboard template, we spent two weeks just understanding their workflow. Turns out, their biggest pain point wasn't the data visualization – it was that their regional managers couldn't access real-time cost comparisons between locations.
That project taught us something crucial: the fanciest charts mean nothing if they don't solve the actual problem keeping business owners awake at night.