If you run an apparel business and you only “see” EBITDA in the close, you are managing the past. The economic outcome has already been committed—quietly, by a sequence of decisions that felt operational at the time.
The decision window is the period where leadership still has leverage: assortment shape, complexity, minimums, lead-time risk, capacity, and price architecture can still move.
The governance mistake
Most organizations treat the window as a workflow problem: more templates, more approvals, more reporting. That produces better documentation, not better economics.
Governance is different. Governance means leadership defines the economic intent, forces exposure of the drivers early, and inserts a gate before commitments become irreversible.
Why valuation listens for control
In diligence, buyers don’t want to hear that you “understand what happened.” They want to believe it won’t happen again—because the system prevents it, flags it, or prices it.
Control is the ability to keep economic outcomes within boundaries under volatility. That is a governance claim, not a reporting claim.
The simple test
Ask one question: When was EBITDA decided for the next season? If the honest answer is “gradually,” you don’t have governance—you have drift.
OpenCosting is built around a control loop: economic intent → early cost exposure → irreversibility gate → variance attribution. It exists to make the decision window explicit—and managed.