Projects & Practice

Where challenges turn into solutions.

Many of my professional projects did not grow out of theoretical concepts, but out of concrete challenges in day-to-day store operations.

My approach combines practical experience, data analysis and process understanding: recognising connections, understanding causes and developing solutions from them that really work in everyday work.

From practice. For practice.

Not every operational challenge already has a matching tool or process. That is exactly where initiative starts for me: identifying the need, understanding the connections and developing a workable solution.

Identify the need

Observing day-to-day operations, analysing data and recognising where existing processes or tools are not enough.

Develop solutions

Turning concrete requirements into my own analysis tools, evaluations, structures or improvement proposals.

Pass on knowledge

Making solutions understandable and sharing knowledge sustainably through training, workshops, practical examples and user support.

From the problem to a lasting solution

An anomaly is initially just a symptom. What matters is understanding the cause behind it and then checking whether a measure actually has an effect.

  1. 1

    Collect data

    Bringing together the relevant information and KPIs.

  2. 2

    Check plausibility

    Reviewing data for completeness, anomalies and possible sources of error.

  3. 3

    Understand causes

    Analysing how things connect and identifying the real cause behind an anomaly.

  4. 4

    Develop measures

    Deriving concrete steps that can actually be implemented in everyday operations.

  5. 5

    Support implementation

    Helping users and responsible colleagues to put the measures into practice.

  6. 6

    Review the effect

    Using KPIs and observations to check whether a measure achieves the intended effect.

My project fields

Data & automation

Analysis and steering solutions built in Excel

For many years Excel was not just a spreadsheet for me, but a tool for developing my own operational solutions.

Concrete requirements turned into automated evaluations and analysis tools for topics such as store management, inventory management, stock losses and weekly reports.

Complex formulas, data preparation and macro logic helped to structure recurring analyses and make information usable more quickly.

What mattered was never the technical complexity of a solution alone. What mattered was that users could derive concrete starting points for action from the prepared information.

Focus areas

ExcelAutomationMacrosReportingData analysisStore management
View case study
Inventory & process reliability

An inventory begins long before the counting day

Inventory differences often do not arise during the inventory count itself. Their causes can already appear months earlier in stock levels, storage locations, workflows or organisational processes.

That is why supporting inventory preparation at an early stage was one of my professional focus areas.

Structured inventory checks, plausibility reviews and a look at relevant risk areas served to make possible problems visible early.

After an inventory, the work did not end with the result. Anomalies were analysed, causes questioned and potential improvements derived for future processes.

Focus areas

Inventory managementPlausibility checksProcess reliabilityRisk analysisStock levelsFollow-up
Case study: Inventory Day Analysis 4.4Case study: Inventory pre-count / high zones
Stock loss & root cause analysis

Behind every KPI there is a cause.

A conspicuous stock loss figure first of all describes a result — it does not yet explain why that result came about.

My approach was therefore to connect different influencing factors with each other.

These included processes, organisation, stock levels, inventory topics and other operational conditions.

The aim was to turn a purely KPI-based view into a comprehensible root cause analysis and to derive concrete fields of action from it.

Focus areas

Stock loss managementKPIsRoot cause analysisRisk assessmentMeasure trackingReview of results
Case study: Shrinkage & root cause analysis
Reporting, digitalisation & rollouts

The link between system and user.

New reports and digital solutions only deliver value once they can be understood and used sensibly in day-to-day operations.

In various projects I was therefore involved in test phases, error analyses, logic reviews and the further development of reporting and system solutions.

I contributed above all the perspective of the later users and practical experience from the stores.

For me, introducing new solutions also included training, workshops, practical examples and user support.

Focus areas

ReportingDigitalisationTestingRolloutUser perspectiveTraining
Case Study: Dynamic Store Ranking

Making complexity understandable.

A solution only lasts when people understand how and why it works.

That is why conveying complex content was part of my work for many years — in classroom training, digital formats, workshops, user support and through concrete practical examples.

My aim: not just explaining functions, but making connections understandable and enabling people to apply the knowledge themselves afterwards.

Personal Project · Self-Study

Automatic Staff Scheduling in Food Retail

A privately developed Excel/VBA learning project from 2026: an automatic staff scheduler for a fictitious food retail store, created through self-study on staffing requirements, sales, qualifications, absences and coverage rules. Not an employer project and not a company system used in production.

View personal project

Happy to exchange ideas.

Would you like to talk about retail processes, store management, data analysis or operational challenges? Then I look forward to your message.

Get in touch