From store floor to AI: How URBN is rewriting retail reporting

In retail, consistency is everything. Sales, inventory, fulfillment, and customer engagement each live in different systems across the value chain. Without alignment, reporting becomes a debate instead of a decision-making tool.

For URBN, that consistency must stretch across its global portfolio, each with distinct customers, products, and regional nuances. Paul Reigel, Senior Director, Information Technology at URBN described the balancing act between local flexibility and global alignment. 

“We don’t want to make a system for everything, but we want one system that's malleable for everybody.”

— Paul Reigel, Senior Director, Information Technology, URBN

Modern retailers everywhere struggle with endless data, disconnected systems, and teams interpreting metrics differently. But it’s a problem that can in fact be solved with a shared business language: a universal semantic layer.

A semantic layer acts as a unified data model that standardizes business definitions, transforming raw data into a single source of truth. This provides the essential foundation for trusted retail intelligence, powering everything from real-time dashboards and operational reporting to generative AI.

“A universal semantic layer is a way for you to see all of your data in one place so that revenue has one definition and all your tools have one single source of truth.”  

— Lauren O’Connor, VP of Product Marketing at Strategy

For URBN, the semantic layer makes it possible to respect local differences (like local garment names) while ensuring everyone calculates sales, inventory, and performance the same way.

The result is a foundation that can evolve. New brands, new regions, new questions, all plug into the same core logic instead of spawning yet another siloed report.

Sean Rattay, who has spent more than a decade working with URBN’s data, brought that foundation to life with one of the company’s most relied-on tools: velocity reporting, which tracks how quickly inventory moves from the shelf to the customer.

URBN leverages the power of the unified semantics in all of its reporting, “allowing teams to very rapidly iterate through pretty much any question and ad hoc reporting users are running,” said Sean Rattay.

“It's the one stop shop for all our planners, allocators, store associates… You name it, it's all on one page meant for our users to consume on a Monday morning.”  

— Sean Rattay, Senior Manager, Business Intelligence, URBN

URBN created a dense, operational command center that helps teams understand what just happened and how to pivot fast. Sales trends, inventory levels, customer feedback, purchase order timing, all connect through the semantic layer so that “sales” means the same thing everywhere.

There’s no doubt that reports drive better decisions, but they require time to analyze, and training to properly interpret the data. Every answer sparks a new question. Historically, that meant building one report after another, and another. That’s where AI enters the picture.

For many store managers, each Monday starts before sunrise, combing through pages of data to decide what to re-merchandise, what to spotlight, and how to compete with higher-volume stores. If a garment is selling in comparable locations, the team may need to adjust window display, floor placement, and traffic flow to give it a chance.  

Now imagine a store associate simply asking: How much of this product do we have left? What’s trending in stores like ours? Instead of scanning spreadsheets, they get an answer in seconds, backed by the same trusted definitions. 

URBN’s new AI chatbot depends on it. Because the AI is grounded in governed data models, users can trace every answer back to its source. That transparency is critical in retail, where a wrong number can ripple through planning, allocation, and financial forecasts.  

Instead of dozens of analysts running ad hoc reports, teams can start with a trusted overview, then “riff” with AI to explore follow-up questions in plain language. 

“Our goal is to help and minimize the amount of people that have to run ad hoc reporting on a Sunday night or a Monday morning.” 

— Sean Rattay, Senior Manager, Business Intelligence, URBN

Retailers are well aware that reporting isn’t disappearing, but it is changing. From supply chain management, all the way to store ops and merchandising, retailers will still rely on core operational views like velocity reports. The difference is what happens next.

Instead of submitting a ticket for a new report, users can now have a conversation with their data. AI, grounded in a semantic layer, becomes a fast, flexible extension of the analytics team.

For retailers navigating constant change: shifting trends, viral products, evolving customer behavior, that combination of shared truth and conversational speed may be the ultimate competitive advantage.