Replacing Fragmented Systems with a Scalable, Modern Data Foundation for Business Agility

"Coastal has been a great partner, taking the time to really understand our business, the complexity of our data, and our objectives. Their expertise in analytics, data modeling, and modern architecture enabled them to design a scalable and future-proof analytics strategy that established enterprise-wide analytics. The exceptional work delivered by this team of experts enhanced our ability to answer complex questions with speed and confidence."

Vice President, Business Systems & Technology

Challenge

A high-growth digital forensics SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) company relied on key insights to drive strategic decisions across marketing, sales, and finance, while also providing critical data to their private equity firm. However, manual processes and disconnected systems—including NetSuite, Google Ads, Salesforce Pardot, and Salesforce Sales Cloud—created significant obstacles for them.

Leaders across the organization struggled with visibility, reporting trustworthiness and timeliness—as well as linking performance metrics to business outcomes.

Siloed systems raised concerns about data accuracy, while manual, time-intensive reporting delayed key metrics and slowed decision-making.

Acquired business units had different processes and tracked metrics inconsistently, complicating unified analysis.

Marketing and sales data were disconnected, making it difficult to track KPIs, tie campaign activity to revenue impact, and assess marketing effectiveness.

Fragmented data impacted sales forecasting accuracy, making it difficult to set realistic targets and allocate resources effectively.

Solution

Coastal’s Data Modernization team first conducted a focused exploratory engagement uncovering the company’s core challenges and business objectives. Based on these insights, we developed a tailored, business-first data strategy and roadmap. Our approach focused on modernizing their data infrastructure to enable scalable analytics, using unified data to drive faster, more strategic decision-making.

Data Landscape Modernization: Upgraded the company’s data infrastructure by implementing a modern tech stack: Fivetran, dbt, Snowflake, and Tableau Cloud.

Unified Data Source: Landed all data in Snowflake, ensuring consistent, reliable data across the organization.

Defined Key Metrics: Collaborated with stakeholders to establish clear business definitions and KPIs, using dbt and Snowflake to create a governed semantic layer that aligned teams on performance metrics.

Self-Service Analytics Enablement: Leveraged Tableau Cloud to give the business domains self-service access to data and insights.

Results

Coastal broke down data silos and unified the company’s cloud-based systems into a flexible, future-ready data infrastructure. With automated reporting and stronger data governance, stakeholders across the organization—and their private equity firm—gained fast, accurate, and actionable insights. The result: dramatically improved decision-making velocity at every level.

Automation of Financial Metrics Needed for the Board

Before: ~2 weeks (≈ 336 hours)

Now: Real-time (≈ 0.1 hour)

Result: 99.97% faster delivery

Automation of Marketing, Sales, & Finance Analytics

Before: ~4 hours per report

Now: Real-time (≈ 0.1 hour)

Result: 97.5% faster time to insight

Self-Service Access to KPIs & Insights Across Teams

With unified data and intuitive access, teams now have real-time visibility into the metrics that matter most:

Marketing: Lead volumes, cost per logo, customer lifetime value (CLV)

Sales: Pipeline health, bookings, win rates, revenue performance

Finance: Monthly recurring revenue (MRR), annual recurring revenue (ARR), expansion, churn, contraction

By modernizing their data infrastructure, Coastal helped the organization fully harness the power of its data and position itself for long-term, data-driven growth. With real-time insights now at their fingertips, leaders can move faster, make smarter decisions, and confidently scale innovation in their mission to protect communities and national security.

Clouds & Products

Snowflake
dbt
Fivetran
Tableau