MYOB is a leading business management platform with a core mission to help more businesses in Australia and New Zealand start, survive, and succeed. It delivers end-to-end business, finance, and accounting solutions directly to companies with between 0 and 1000 employees and a network of accountants, bookkeepers, and consultants.
MYOB’s new platform runs on the Snowflake Data Cloud and replaces existing data services. MYOB Data Platform Lead, Stefanie Kechayas, said the project was fueled by the company’s desire to use its rich data resources to support its employees and improve customer service.
“Solutions like Snowflake allow us to understand our customers better and make evidence-based decisions about which features work best for them,” said Kechayas.
“However, to achieve this, we realized we needed to make some fundamental changes to how our data is stored and managed.”
MYOB’s development teams are continuously producing a wide range of valuable data. With the introduction of domain-driven, centralized storage via Snowflake, MYOB can better organize and group this information and access its insights faster.
“We had a really big data landscape, so our biggest challenge was understanding that information,” says Kechayas.
“How we’ve set up our data solutions in the past has mostly focused on certain data sources. Now we can be much more dynamic in how we view and interact with our data,” she says.
An alternative platform
The previous data solution had brought multiple data sets in one location but did not provide a user-friendly interface to enable self-service for staff.
“A lot of team members just didn’t know where to start. We knew we needed to find a platform enabling product managers to make informed decisions about which features offer our customers the most value,” says Kechayas.
“We also wanted our senior leadership to have easier access to the data and our delivery teams to build data science-enabled solutions for our customers,” she says.
“After carefully examining a range of options, it was decided to deploy Snowflake in November 2020, and work on the implementation began in December 2020.”
Cultural and performance improvements
Now that the Snowflake platform is up and running, it is much easier for staff to access and use various data sets. Domain controllers can also add users and built-in data without involving the data team.
“In addition to removing technical barriers, Snowflake is helping us change the data culture across our company,” said Kechayas.
“Better visibility and access to data mean people are more likely to use data innovatively.
“Snowflake has also delivered some impressive performance gains for the company. The main sales dashboard report, which used to take three hours daily, can now be completed in just nine minutes.”
Talent recruitment
The deployment of Snowflake has also contributed to making MYOB an attractive workplace for data engineers and analysts.
“The competition for the best talent is strong, and we are always looking for ways to strengthen our team,” said Kechayas.
“Working with technology solutions like Snowflake shows that as a company, we want to solve the right problems the right way and have a strategy to invest in the best technologies to help us achieve this goal.
“MYOB also looks forward to getting even more value from the new Snowflake platform in the coming months and years,” she adds.
“For us, the barriers to using data have been removed.”
The MYOB implementation comes when new research from Snowflake recently found that only 41% of Australian companies surveyed say most of their decisions are based on data, and 60% of companies do not have easy access to all available data through a single system or application.
Only 6% of companies surveyed use, use, and share data and data services in a way that provides them with all the business benefits that a robust data strategy offers.
Only 55% of companies surveyed say sharing can happen freely within their organization without breaking internal data silos, hindering data sharing and collaboration between business units.
