Driven Brands Turns to Trusted Solutions Provider insightsoftware to Solve Its Reporting Challenges

• Driven Brands needed a way to consolidate and report on data from many disparate sources.

• VP and Controller Richard Dirkson turned to insightsoftware, with whom he had partnered for reporting solutions in the past.

• insightsoftware suggested Spreadsheet Server to meet Driven’s reporting and analysis needs.

• After a smooth implementation, Driven is seeing significant improvements in process efficiency and data storytelling.

Driven Brands is a leading provider of automotive services and maintenance in the United States and Canada. As the parent company for such brands as Meineke, Maaco, CARSTAR, and Take 5 Oil Change, its footprint includes thousands of commercial and retail automotive service locations—from collision repair and car washes to distribution and quick oil change services.

When Richard Dirkson stepped into his role as Vice President and Controller at Driven Brands, he knew he was taking on a unique challenge. Driven operates a variety of automotive service locations, each with its own sales and inventory system that must be integrated with Driven’s central data management infrastructure. With such diversified operations, Dirkson’s mission was to bring clarity to complex data and empower teams to make faster and better business decisions. Arriving at Driven Brands, Dirkson faced a pressing problem—an outdated patchwork of legacy systems like Sage 500 and Sage 100, which couldn’t scale to meet the needs of a large, publicly traded company. This fragmented data architecture prevented Dirkson and his team from delivering comprehensive insights. Reporting was time-consuming, prone to errors, and lacked the depth required for effective decision-making. Implementing Oracle Cloud as a next-generation ERP system was a critical step forward, but it came with its own complexities. While Oracle provided an enhanced data repository, accessing the right data in the right format proved to be a significant obstacle. “What we found is there was an enormous amount of data in Oracle,” Dirkson explained. “The problem was getting information out of the system in a way that facilitated analytics reporting and was digestible by the user.” Key challenges included:

• Data Extraction: Pulling actionable data from Oracle often required multiple reports and navigating through disparate systems.

• Inefficient Processes: Simple tasks, such as analyzing accounts receivable or understanding inventory flow, required days of labor and involved up to 700,000 data lines.

• Reporting Complexity: Teams struggled to consolidate figures for clear, concise reporting, especially with inventory and sales data being scattered across multiple sources, including point-of-sale systems and warehouses.

These inefficiencies not only delayed key business decisions but also hindered the finance team’s ability to present meaningful insights, potentially leading to missed revenue opportunities, higher operational costs due to suboptimal inventory management, and slower responses to market trends. Dirkson recognized the need for an automated solution to preserve internal stakeholder confidence in financial reporting while enabling Driven Brands to operate more efficiently and achieve sustainable growth.

Dirkson brought a wealth of experience to Driven, including a long history with insightsoftware solutions like GL Wand and Reports Wand at previous roles. Having successfully implemented insightsoftware solutions in industries like health services and medical device manufacturing, he had first-hand experience of their ability to simplify data reporting and provide digestible insights for business users. “What we found was an enormous amount of data in Oracle or SAP,” said Dirkson of his previous role. “The problem was getting the data out of the system in a way that facilitated analytics and reporting and was digestible by the user. The other issue we had, due to some of the technical complexity of the business, was that it was taking longer to close.” “So we had two problems: complexity of information and time to close. So we implemented GL Wand and Reports Wand, and two things happened. One is that we had a cleaner-packaged experience for the user, so we could show a very concise balance sheet and P&L, so we could present the data in a way that answered fundamental questions, not just give them data. The other one is that we reduced the time to close for those specific areas by at least 2-3 days.”

Given Dirkson’s familiarity with insightsoftware and trust in its proven solutions, insightsoftware was his first call to explore tools that could solve his specific challenges with Oracle Cloud. “Because I had an existing relationship with insightsoftware, going back over a decade using GL Wand, they were the first people I called,” he said. “And to be honest with you, I didn't call anybody else.” insightsoftware proposed Spreadsheet Server, an Excel-based solution capable of seamlessly connecting to Oracle Cloud and other data sources like Driven's POS systems and data lake. The tool’s ability to consolidate multiple data streams into a single, user-friendly interface stood out as its defining feature. How it solved Driven’s reporting challenges:

• Effortless Data Consolidation: Spreadsheet Server provides refreshable data, works with hundreds of data sources, and allows you to combine GL and non-GL data into a single report.

• Excel-Based Reporting and Analysis: Rather than lose countless hours to data dumps and CSV uploads, pull your data directly into Excel for truly self-service reporting using a tool you’re already familiar with.

• No More Time-Consuming Manual Processes: Automate tedious repetitive processes and free up more time for valuable analysis, so you can make more informed business decisions.

“Spreadsheet Server is able to look directly into Oracle and pull information out and structure it in the way that we needed. I can connect to multiple data sources, so I just don't have to look at one thing related to the GL or one thing related to inventory – I can weave those two things together and then present a picture that's end-to-end. It's a tool that scales and adapts and allows us to focus on the outcomes we're trying to achieve instead of just managing and digesting data,” Richard shared.

Driven Brands began its Spreadsheet Server implementation shortly after the Oracle Cloud transition was complete. insightsoftware partnered closely with Driven’s IT and accounting teams, meticulously planning the process to ensure minimal disruption and frictionless user adoption. From the start, it was an experience that proved to Dirkson why insightsoftware deserved brand loyalty. “I didn't call anybody else because I knew the tools. I wasn't familiar with Spreadsheet Server, but I knew GL Wand and Reports Wand,” he said. “When insightsoftware said, ‘hey, we’ve got this alternative solution for you,’ I was eager to do a demo.” Dirkson thoroughly explained his team’s reporting needs and the company’s future goals for its software implementation. “I was very specific about the problems we were trying to solve. And they walked through all our use cases,” he said, explaining how the Spreadsheet Server team demonstrated how the tool could meet not only Dirkson’s immediate reporting needs, but also how he could later extend Spreadsheet Server to other teams to get the maximum return on Driven Brands’ software investment. “It wasn't a decision strictly from accounting. It was one third accounting and two thirds the rest of the business and how can the business leverage Spreadsheet Server to make decisions, not just to see what the financial results are.” After seeing the Spreadsheet Server demonstration and the transformative potential it had for his team and company, Dirkson said, “it was an easy decision to say this is an investment that's worth making. It's going to be able to scale with us over time and be able to help us answer questions a lot faster than we ever could in the past.” “The Spreadsheet Server team was fabulous,” Dirkson said. “In terms of responsiveness and follow-through, this implementation was impressive. This team understood what we needed, they understood what we asked for as we were doing the implementation, they came back in a timely manner, and ultimately, we got up and running.”

Although still in the early stages of adoption, Spreadsheet Server is already delivering promising results at Driven Brands:

• Time Savings: Reporting workflows have become dramatically more efficient, reducing repetitive tasks for accounting teams. Accounts receivable processes that previously stretched over two days now take just one to two hours, freeing up considerable time for other strategic activities.

• Deeper Insights: Teams now have improved visibility into inventory flows, from procurement through distribution and consumption. By combining data from multiple sources, Spreadsheet Server enables end-to-end views of business performance, empowering leaders to address challenges proactively.

These initial achievements validate the investment in Spreadsheet Server and give teams confidence in its broader capabilities.

Looking ahead, Driven Brands aims to transition from a transactional, numbers-focused accounting approach to a strategic, financial storytelling-driven model. The meet this goal, Dirkson is taking a two-pronged approach to Driven’s Spreadsheet Server utilization strategy.

Empowering Self-Service Reporting and Analysis

By enabling individual users to access the data they need, teams across the organization will spend less time mining data and more time analyzing it. Spreadsheet Server will play a central role in this transition, helping Driven scale its reporting structure as the company grows. “It's an amazing tool for the accountants when they're doing research,” Dirkson said. “They’re able to drill into transactional level data and understand what's going on.”

Data-Driven Financial Storytelling

Dirkson is passionate about presenting data in ways that drive action. As he explained, “business leaders don’t care about debits and credits—they want to know how much they’re selling, what it’s costing them, and what their profit is. Spreadsheet Server allows us to tell that story faster and to package that information together in a way we couldn't do before.” By integrating Spreadsheet Server with its Data Lake and Oracle Cloud environments, Dirkson plans to create a centralized reporting ecosystem that supports real-time analytics across all Driven subsidiaries. “I don't want to feel like I'm having to look at 50 different tables. I want to look at one thing. Spreadsheet Server allows us to look at our data from a user’s perspective,” he says. “It allows our accountants to do what they actually like to do, which is go beyond the numbers and tell the business leaders what they need to know to make better decisions faster.” Driven Brands’ early results with Spreadsheet Server demonstrate the power of focused, user-friendly reporting tools. Key benefits so far include greater efficiency in financial processes, like accounts receivable and inventory analysis, and stronger data oversight and connectivity, enabling cleaner, faster, and more actionable insights. With insightsoftware and Spreadsheet Server, Driven Brands is not just solving today’s problems—it’s building the foundation for a smarter, faster, and more data-driven future.