Building robust end-to-end data flows to reveal value creation

Working for a growing client

Formed from the initial merging of two business units with an amassed GMV of over 50 billion Euros, our Private-Equity-backed client now boasts a total of six business units offering a range of SaaS solutions to online retailers in the form of a combined SaaS platform.

Despite occupying a prime spot in a growing market, the client needed to sustain growth and retain a competitive edge in an environment of widespread economic downturn. This requires careful decision-making backed by robust analysis and insights.

The challenge: Consolidate data to reveal growth opportunities

Our client offered an attractive proposition to a diverse range of online business owners who needed to funnel their products through the umbrella of one cohesive platform. However, such sustaining this offer brings its own challenges for our client such as disparate data sources and a lack of financial reporting consistency across the whole business.

The lack of consistent financial reporting was hindering a clear view of the group’s stability and growth. As SaaS businesses rely on efficient incorporation and processing of invoicing data to maintain a steady cashflow, the disparate data sources also posed a risk to cashflow.

The client needed to consolidate data across the business to enable financial reporting, highlight value creation opportunities and secure sustainability in what is a dynamic SaaS industry. Our work has added value to every stage of the organisation - we have laid robust foundations for data consolidation and management, carried out advanced analytics, and presented insights to senior decision-makers through a bespoke financial reporting suite.

Our solution

QuantSpark carried out a thorough analysis of each individual business unit to assess data quality and financial reporting methods. A financial reporting roadmap was developed in alignment with the long-term goals of the business - enabling group-wide reporting and identifying pain points and value creation areas.

Our solution ingests raw data from individual business units and transforms it into a consistent format across the group, laying the foundations for group-wide reporting. Millions of rows of invoice-level data are ingested at both daily and monthly cadence, providing visibility at the most granular level into over 9 million Euros of revenue per year. This enables a wealth of opportunities to slice the data and perform advanced analytics.

We utilised Redshift for an efficient and scalable database to allow new data to be ingested as the group grows, and used dbt and Airflow to automate data processing and refreshes. Using the optimum tools has saved time for our client's team, enabling them to focus on value-creation activities both now and into the future.

On top of this robust architecture, we incorporated an advanced analytics layer to perform data modelling and calculations for all business units. As an integral part of SaaS reporting, Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) was calculated, with numerous additional financial metrics also calculated to give a full picture of the financial health of the whole business.

The advanced analytics layer feeds into a comprehensive BI suite, complete with financial trend visualisations and drill-down capability to identify value creation and pain point areas.

Tools and techniques utilised

• Data Engineering to consolidate disparate business unit data (Redshift, SQL, S3)

• Automation of data pipelines and refreshes (dbt, Airflow)

• Advanced data modelling to calculate ARR and financial metrics (SQL)

• Comprehensive financial reporting BI suite to enable efficient and strategic decision-making (PowerBI)

Impact: Identifying value creation opportunities

QuantSpark has delivered an end-to-end solution that consolidates raw data in a repeatable and scalable way and created a bespoke financial reporting suite to enable strategic decision-making to further the growth and success of the business.

With the ability to view trends for both the entire business and individual business units, we uncovered an average growth rate of 21% in Customer Lifetime Value over the past year for the largest business unit.

The range of financial metrics calculated and visualised opens the door for numerous value creation opportunities in the future, such as churn prevention, upsell propensity and sales conversion rate improvements – features vital to any SaaS business wanting to innovate and maintain an edge in the evolving market.