All of those people need information e empowered to to make decisions based on that data. Data warehousing technology allows them to analyse company information and act on it. The key benefit of data warehousing is that someone can switch on a computer and get an immediate picture of how a business is doing. Anything from financial data to distribution graphs can be brought up at the touch of a button. Executives can get information in their language at their level just by looking at the computer screen - they can see at a glance where any potential business problems lie.
Retail executives know all about shelf-life.
They know any commodity is best consumed fresh and that applies to their data, too. Instead of waiting weeks for information and then days before it's formatted into something an executive can use, reports can be generated quickly.