Executive summary
Business challenge
Monica Vinader wanted real-time analytics with a high degree of self-serve capability to reduce the dependence on a lean data team. Their current data platform wasn’t optimized for speed & metric consistency.
Solution
5X provided a turn-key solution to MV. First, 5X, in collaboration with MVs internal data team replaced the legacy data stack with 5Xs all-in-one data platform. And then commissioned its consultancy team to streamline MVs pipelines: consolidating multiple warehouses into Google BigQuery, removing bottlenecks and bugs from the ETL, and migrating to a faster BI vendor.
Impact
A newly built & optimized platform resulted in 70% faster queries, 70% cost savings, & 80% reduction in ETL job runtime. Business users benefited from getting real-time, accurate insights.
“What sets 5X apart is their end-to-end support. They didn't just offer us a new tool, they provided a complete solution, including the agility to make real-time decisions and expert consultancy that helped us streamline many of our data operations.”
Emily Benton
Monica Vinader
data stack
The challenge
Faster and accurate insights for quick decisions
The leadership team at Monica Vinader needed accurate data to make quick business decisions, especially during the busy holiday season. Their current setup was slow, complicated, and wasn’t optimized for metric definitions across reporting platforms. Data scattered across two warehouses, inefficient ETL workflows, and a legacy BI vendor led to delayed runtimes, slow dashboards, and increased data platform costs.
The 5X solution
Creating a real-time data analytics engine involved a two-pronged approach—upgrading the tooling and creating pipelines that turn raw data into insights within tight SLAs.
Step #1: Upgrading the tooling
Monica Vinader replaced its legacy data stack with 5X’s all-in-one data platform. Chosen for its ease of use and out-of-the-box capabilities for data ingestion, modeling, orchestration, and analysis.
Today, the 5X ingestion engine processes ~75M rows/month at a cost 45% lower than their previous vendor.
5X also helped Monica Vinader upgrade its BI system to Sigma. Our data engineers worked alongside the internal Data team to migrate over 100 dashboards from their legacy vendor to Sigma.
The best part - 5X manages Sigma on behalf of Monica Vinader, relieving their team of managing and integrating multiple data vendors.
5X is the single point of contact for all of Monica Vinader’s BI needs.
Step #2: Creating efficient workflows and pipelines
With the foundational platform in place, our consultancy team was commissioned to create workflows that centralized, transformed, and fed clean data into dashboards. Monica Vinader chose 5X consultancy for experienced data engineers available at 25% of the cost of US-based counterparts.
Consolidating the data warehouse
Monica Vinader’s data was scattered across two warehouses: Snowflake and Google BigQuery. This arrangement was expensive and complex. To streamline operations, we advised them to move everything to one data warehouse, Google BigQuery, selected after evaluating the company’s needs, budget, and performance. We then began migrating the data and adjusting existing models and processes to fit BigQuery.
Streamlining ETL workflows
The original ETL was messy and slow. Complex models with high runtime, involving numerous unions and subqueries. All leading to a lengthy duration of the hourly ETL job: 27 minutes!
5X simplified the process by removing unnecessary unions, using case statements, and combining models. This cut the runtime down by 80%, from 27 minutes to just 8.
Additionally, 5X fixed bugs that were causing errors in revenue reporting and discrepancies in amounts.
Data management in the BI layer was inefficient, with complex joins and virtual columns causing slow chart load times. To fix this, 5X moved all metrics and virtual columns from the BI layer to the dbt models, speeding up dashboard loading and improving efficiency. 5X also switched dashboards from an outdated BI tool to Sigma, which better supports MV’s real-time analytics needs.
"5X’ has been a key player in the evolution of our data stack. Their data consultancy team helped us consolidate our warehouses, optimise our ETL workflows, and gave us fast, reliable insights in our new BI tool. Now, through the simplification of our data landscape, my team can rely on more efficient data processes and focus on driving business value."
Emily Benton
5X helped drive three key business goals
The Impact
MV leadership is now able to use accurate data and insights to make crucial business decisions in real-time.
New data platform & optimizations resulted in:
70% faster queries | 70% cost savings | 80% reduction in ETL job runtime.
Total annual cost savings on data platform
- Ingestion: 45%
- Warehouse: 45K annual saving (70% reduction)
What’s in store for the future?
MV is evaluating the 5X Modeling and Orchestration layer to further enhance their data operations.
And 5X data engineers are helping MV leadership leverage data to understand their customers better, personalize offers, and optimize conversions.
Company
Monica Vinader Ltd. is a British luxury brand creating sustainable, everyday jewelry. Founded in 2008, they've focused on responsible and sustainable production, using 100% recycled gold, and sterling silver.
Headquarters
London
Industry
Retail Luxury Goods and Jewelry
Achievement
Company size
200 employees
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