How We Automated Resource and Budget Planning with Databricks for a Retail & Entertainment Client
Cineplex is a leading company in the retail and entertainment industry that relied on Excel-based workflows for resource planning and budget forecasting....
At a Glance
Cineplex is a leading company in the retail and entertainment industry that relied on Excel-based workflows for resource planning and budget forecasting. These manual processes made consolidation slow, limited scalability, and created challenges in maintaining consistent calculations across business units. They required an automated planning solution using Databricks to modernize resource planning, enable faster processing, and replace manual Excel workflows with scalable applications and dashboards.
Challenge
Excel-based planning processes limited scalability and efficiency
The client's existing Excel-based resource planning and budgeting processes posed several challenges:
- Manual Excel workflows with complex dependencies and calculations.
- Limited visibility into data lineage and transformation logic
- Time-consuming data consolidation across multiple sources
- Slow resource planning and budget forecasting cycles
- Difficulty adapting to new entities and calculation changes
These obstacles slowed planning cycles, increased manual effort, and limited scalability.
Solution
Databricks-powered automation and planning application
zeb, in collaboration with Databricks, developed and implemented an automated planning solution that transformed manual Excel workflows into scalable Databricks pipelines and applications.
- Business Process Analysis: Analyzed existing Excel-based processes to identify data lineage, dependencies, and transformation logic. Documented workflows and identified automation opportunities.
- Legacy Code Translation: Translated stored procedures and SSIS packages into Databricks notebooks. Converted legacy transformations into scalable Spark-based workflows.
- AI/BI Dashboard Migration: Replaced Excel-based reporting with interactive AI/BI dashboards, enabling real-time analytics and natural language querying.
- Resource Planning App: Developed a Databricks App to replicate Excel functionality for resource planning with automated calculations and scenario modeling.
Benefits
Adaptive framework, faster processing, and automated workflows
- Dynamic Framework: Built a modular framework enabling seamless adaptation to new entities and calculation updates with minimal system impact.
- Automated Consolidation: Standardized and automated data consolidation across multiple sources, reducing processing time from days to minutes.
- Process Transformation: Transformed manual Excel-based planning into scalable automated workflows using Databricks.
A joint Databricks + zeb success story
This engagement represents a successful joint Databricks + zeb implementation to optimize planning and budgeting processes for Cineplex.
By leveraging the Databricks platform, zeb helped transform manual planning operations into a scalable, automated system that improves efficiency, transparency, and operational agility.
Partner with zeb today
Modernizing planning and analytics processes is critical for organizations looking to scale efficiently. As a trusted partner of Databricks, zeb helps organizations build modern data platforms, automate critical business workflows, and gain deeper visibility into their data.
Let's connect and explore how we can help modernize your planning and analytics workflows.
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