How a Retail Giant Unlocked $5B in New Revenue

The Issue

A Fortune 50 retailer discovered that 10% of its customers generated 50% of the revenue—approximately $80 billion. They were treating them like an afterthought.

Professional contractors saw the company as a last resort. Internal teams spent 80% of their time as human telephones between systems. Contractors abandoned $50,000 orders because they lacked confidence in the retailer’s delivery capabilities.

Our Mission

Transform the company from an emergency supplier to the operating system for contractors' businesses.

Our Approach

Creativity surfaced what no one would say: contractors wanted partnership but settled for transactions. We spent 200 hours watching how contractors actually worked.

Design Thinking found the breaking point: when contractors spend more time managing suppliers than building. Contractors lost 3-4 hours weekly to administrative friction.

Business Thinking identified five critical moments: obtaining quotes, verifying orders, scheduling deliveries, finding substitutes, and managing projects. Win these moments, unlock billions.

The Process

Excavating Truth: We interviewed 17 contractors, ranging from single operators to commercial builders, and 14 internal support staff who were drowning in inefficiency. Not satisfaction surveys, real conversations about struggling moments. 200 hours of shadowing contractors revealed what conference rooms never could: every contractor exists on a planning spectrum, constantly shifting between proactive control and reactive scrambling.

Confronting Reality: During a two-day workshop, we locked contractors and internal stakeholders in a room for conversations they'd been avoiding. The truth emerged: "You have everything I need, but getting it costs me more in time than you save in price."

We generated over 70 concepts, then filtered them ruthlessly through Desirability, Viability, and Feasibility. No theoretical frameworks; actual solutions that contractors would use.

Proving What Works: We ran rapid prototypes with real contractors. Not PowerPoint presentations, but working tools they could touch and test. One contractor abandoned a $50,000 order during our observations. Through our testing, that same scenario saved the order through intelligent substitution and guaranteed delivery windows.

Teams built 16 solutions. With contractors, not for them. Each addressed a specific moment where contractors decided if the retailer was worth it or not. These solutions were prioritized and added to the product roadmap for delivery.

Delivered Outcomes:

24 months. $5 billion in new revenue.

• Improved quote turnaround
• Account spending increased
• Increased digital adoption
• Improved Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Improved internal productivity

The Truth

For contractors, time is inventory that expires at 5 PM.

The $5 billion didn't come from selling more. It came from respecting their time and providing tools that empowered them to do what they needed, quickly.

Your Turn

What truth is everyone thinking but no one saying?

Which sounds familiar?

• "Our best people waste hours on minutes-long tasks"
• "Customers stay despite us, not because of us"
• "We know what's broken but can't fix it"

The real problem isn't what you think. Your team knows the answer—they need permission to say it.

Ready to surface the truth?

We don't do comfortable. We build solutions WITH your team, not for them.

Because good enough sucks. And comfortable hasn't worked.

Let's talk when you're ready for the conversation others avoid.

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Note: This transformation was led by us during our tenure at leading digital consulting firm using our methodology, specializing in co-creation and human-centered design. Our approach stands out because we immerse ourselves in our clients' challenges and empower their teams to speak the truths that need to be heard. By fostering a mindset of discovery and transparency, we not only solve surface-level problems but also drive profound organizational change. This is why we share this success story; it exemplifies confronting uncomfortable truths, something we now do directly with our clients.