Two decades of a seasonal water park on seven Excel sheets, retyped by hand every day of the season: attendance, revenue by area and channel, supplier expenses, movements across four banks, staff contributions. Sophisticated, fragmented, and unable to answer a question.
One database went underneath the lot. Twelve sources now write into it on their own, the finance grid keeps every manual column the team still wants, and five seasons of history answer a question in plain language instead of being compared file against file.