From manual reporting to an automated data platform

CHALLENGE

As GKR Trade‘s business volumes grew, so did the time and effort spent on reporting, and this had become a problem: manually pulling data from source systems, then building, checking and, where needed, correcting regular reports in Excel, was taking up too much working time. GKR Trade’s goal was to free up that time for meaningful analysis and get regular reporting running automatically.

SOLUTION

As part of the project, we built a cloud-based data platform made up of a Snowflake data warehouse, open-source ELT components (Airflow, Airbyte, dbt) and Tableau reporting. Using open-source ELT components meant we could start with a relatively low initial investment and automate the first part of the reporting relatively quickly. Since then, the data platform has been developed further step by step, according to GKR Trade’s needs.

RESULTS

The company’s key reports are now automated, and fresh data, updated regularly throughout the day, is always available to the people making business decisions. The data warehouse has become a single source of truth for analytics, bringing together and combining data from different source systems. The company now has Tableau-trained staff who can build the reports and dashboards needed for business decisions, as well as a wider group of users who can find answers in Tableau independently.