“For us VDS is a strategic partner at the interface of business and data.”

Kooi Camerabewaking is one of the leading providers of building-site security in Europe. In a market of temporary, mobile camera surveillance, data is the most important parameter: where are the units, what do they yield, and where is demand rising. The company is growing fast and across several countries, and that makes the need for reliable management information greater than the existing reports could carry.

Reports from separate sources

Kooi worked with several source systems from which management information had to be brought together. Forecasting, financial control and operational reports ran through Power BI, fed by an ETL flow that could no longer keep up with the growth. Figures were put together differently by each department, so the management team ended up debating the numbers instead of the choices behind them.

Erik Kort, COO at the time: “For Kooi, VDS is a data translator. They bundle data from our source systems into one complete dashboard in Power BI, management information served on a platter.”

First the questions, then the technology

VDS rebuilt the ETL tool and designed a dashboard for forecasting analysis in which sales managers and financial controllers can find their own way, with ease of use first. The approach was deliberately the reverse of what Kooi was used to: first ask the right questions at a high level, which data, from which systems, over which years, and only then build. Feedback is gathered throughout the work, so that the result matches how people actually work.

Scalable, at a fraction of the cost

For business controller Marcel Teunissen the gain sits as much on the cost side as in the reporting itself. “Thanks to VDS we now have an ETL solution in place for a fraction of the cost I see elsewhere, and one that is scalable as well, so we can keep developing.” Under the bonnet the environment is set up modularly: new sources can be connected without the model having to go back to the drawing board.

One single source of truth for the Board

For Kooi’s Board there is now one single source of truth. The organisation runs on Power BI, with management information that lets the strategy be tested rather than explained after the fact. The reports the management team uses daily are refreshed automatically, without manual steps. On top of that, the data warehouse is ready for the data migration towards the new ERP.

Continuity as a precondition

With reports the management team uses daily, downtime is not an option. There is therefore an SLA with fast response times on the critical flows: no off-days on the days the figures have to be there. That is the difference between a dashboard that is trusted and a dashboard that stays parked next to someone’s own Excel.

What Kooi gets out of it

The biggest lesson of this project: scalability is not a technical property, it is a choice in the way you model your data. Get that choice right early and you do not have to start all over again years later. Marco Banning: “For us VDS is a strategic partner that works at the interface of business and data, and relates those two to the strategy.”