The Anatomy of a Gap: Uncovering €8 Million in Hidden Value

At first glance, the system was working.

Orders were flowing, prices were approved, reports were being filed.

But beneath the surface, something didn’t add up - small discrepancies across markets that felt too minor to matter.

Until they did.

This project began with a question that no one could quite answer:

“Why does our reported revenue not align with our forecast?”

The answer turned out to be worth eight

---

The Challenge

A leading global consumer goods company with over €50B in annual revenue was facing persistent pricing inconsistencies across its Nordic markets. The complexity of promotions, manual entries, and fragmented validation processes created invisible revenue leakage that had gone unnoticed for years.

What looked like efficiency was, in fact, opacity.

The Process

Working within the European Order-to-Cash structure, I led a full audit of the pricing master data and discount governance for one of the Nordic markets.

We dissected every step: from ERP entries to finance reconciliation, to understand not only what was happening, but why.

It wasn’t about blame; it was about clarity.

By connecting operational details with financial outcomes, we revealed where automation had replaced attention, and where human insight was still essential.

The Outcome

The audit uncovered an €8M annualized pricing gap - revenue that existed on paper, but not in margin. Together with local and regional teams, we rebuilt the pricing and promotion process, redefined validation controls, and implemented a monitoring dashboard that now flags discrepancies in real time.

The fix was technical.

The impact was cultural.

Because when you restore transparency, you restore trust - in the numbers, in the process, and in the people behind them.

The Reflection

Every inefficiency hides in plain sight, disguised as “how we’ve always done it.

”Finding it requires not louder systems, but deeper listening.