The small data team’s guide to conquering data

All of the tools a small data team needs to turn their disparate data into a centralized data strategy, powered by Fivetran

Data is your organization’s secret weapon — if you know how to unlock it. It must be centralized, normalized and harmonized before it can be properly activated. The responsibility of all of these actions falls on the data team.

But, the average size of a data team? One to three people.

These small teams are tasked with turning large troves of disparate data into recurring reports, ad-hoc analysis, financial ledgers, activations and more. They hold the pipelines and the models to the data-driven success; but how do they juggle all of these responsibilities?

With efficient tools and strategies. And that’s exactly why Fivetran has built the small data team’s toolkit for centralizing and managing data. Continue reading to dive deeper into a few features that help small data teams find efficiencies and unlock the full potential of their data.

Pain point: Centralizing data is important, but building and maintaining pipelines demands constant time and resources

Solution: Use ready-built / out-of-the-box connectors to save time and resources.

What is it: Fully managed data movement for all of your sources into your destination of choice. With Fivetran’s 300+ connectors, you don’t have to worry about building or maintaining your essential pipelines that provide access to your data. These connectors span databases, SaaS connectors and more. They have analytics-ready schemas and automated schema migration, ensuring your data is always accurate, regardless of changes. If there isn’t a connector available for your source, you can participate in our new By Request program and our team can build out a new Lite connector — ensuring you have access to all of your data.

What this unlocks:

  1. No time spent building nor maintaining faulty pipelines! 
  2. You can work on turning data into insights rather than focusing on basic data movement and normalizing data. 
  3. Clear out your data project backlog (finally)! You can connect any source - by leveraging any connector in our library or by requesting a Lite Connector.

[CTA_MODULE]

Pain point: Scaling a data practice on a budget, and fear of unknown costs

Solution: Start small with usage-based pricing

What is it: Data should be accessible to all. In fact, it’s our mission at Fivetran to make access to data as simple and reliable as electricity. That includes from a pricing perspective — which is why we introduced our Free Plan earlier this year. With our Free Plan, you can begin your data movement process and scale into an appropriate plan. We also give you complete visibility and ownership over your monthly active rows (MAR) and pricing directly on your billing and usage pages. If you’re worried about your budget before adding a new source, you always try the first 14 days free so you can predict usage and costs before deciding to continue.

What this unlocks:

  1. Start on our Free Plan with low data volumes, without a credit card.
  2. Add more sources and increase your usage on your own schedule and budget — giving you complete ownership over your data and your bill.

[CTA_MODULE]

Pain point: Basic data preparation and transformation consumes time without driving the growth needle forward

Solution: Quickstart data models and dbt™ integration to automate your data transformations

What is it: Pre-built data models that transform your most used SaaS application data into analytics-ready tables, right when your Fivetran connectors finish loading. Our expert team collaborates with the community to build out the foundational data transformations needed to turn raw data into actionable tables. And, with our new Quickstart data models, you can download, orchestrate and manage these model runs with all clicks. No dbt project, 3rd party tools or coding required — just accelerated time to analytics-ready tables for your most used SaaS connectors. For any custom needs, you can also integrate, orchestrate and manage your own dbt project.

What this unlocks:

  1. Automate and manage your entire data pipeline from the Fivetran UI.
  2. Reallocate time from basic modeling work to more custom or higher impact projects - freeing up time and increasing efficiency.

Pain point: Data-driven problems that you cannot solve

Solution: Extend your data team with Fivetran’s world-class support and Community

What is it: Issues are bound to come up. If you have a small team, they can derail your entire workload. Fortunately, Fivetran’s Support team is here to help. Think of them as an extension of your own team, but specialized in all aspects of data movement. And, with Fivetran’s Community, you can connect with your peers and discuss all things data. You’ve now expanded your team tenfold.

What this unlocks:

  1. Data-driven answers to data-driven problems, at scale.
  2. Go-to-place to learn and collaborate with peers in the industry.

[CTA_MODULE]

Get inspiration from other small teams

These tools, and others, have helped many small data teams achieve greater efficiency, impact and growth. Let’s take a look at a few examples:

Hunt, Gather reduced their time to getting data and insights by 95%

The Austin-based creative agency revolutionized its data analytics and reporting capabilities, making it easier to track performance throughout the company and in client work.

  • KPI: They uncover key operational insights 95 percent faster with Fivetran and finally have reliable data on their operational costs that refresh every 15 minutes.
  • Quote: “I’ve worked at larger, global agencies with thousands of employees, and they do all of these things manually. Now that we have these automated connectors at Hunt, Gather, my plate is full of projects to implement Fivetran throughout the agency and for clients.” - Jordan Scott, Analytics & Reporting Director
  • Click here to read their full story

Yardzen built their first multi-attribution dashboard

In minutes, Yardzen's data engineering team-of-one set up worry-free data pipelines, reallocating focus from building and maintaining pipelines to value-driving opportunities.

  • KPI: They increased time for projects that generate value for the business — scaling far beyond what was previously capable for a team of one.
  • Quote: “If you're spending money and you don't know exactly what you're spending it on, it's a big deal for a small company.” - Andrea Kyrala, Data Engineering Lead
  • Click here to read their full story

Hashtag You has 3x more sources centralized than before, breaking data silos

Brand builder Hashtag You harnesses data to target lifestyle brands, reach digital audiences and improve the overall customer journey.

  • KPI: 76 data sources are currently integrated with automated pipelines — 3x the total number of its data sources in less than a year since the start of the Fivetran project!
  • Quote: "Our approach to influencer marketing is really very unique, very automated and very in-depth. With Fivetran's connectors, we can quickly and easily spin up certain pipelines and easily obtain data that's important to us." - Ashish Kalra, Data & Analytics Team Lead
  • Click here to read their full story

Code2College got out of one-off, manual spreadsheets

Code2College leverages data to give minority and low-income students more voice in the tech/STEM career space.

  • KPI: By implementing Fivetran’s Free Plan, Code2College increased data access at zero cost, and finally got out of static, manual spreadsheets
  • Quote: “The system we have built now with Fivetran is going to scale with us — at least as our data grows for the next 5 to 10 years.” - Samantha LeBlanc, former Associate Director of Data
  • Click here to read their full story

If you’re a small data team looking for better tools to tackle your data, sign up for a 14 day free trial of Fivetran.

Start for free

Join the thousands of companies using Fivetran to centralize and transform their data.

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Data insights
Data insights

The small data team’s guide to conquering data

The small data team’s guide to conquering data

April 25, 2023
April 25, 2023
The small data team’s guide to conquering data
All of the tools a small data team needs to turn their disparate data into a centralized data strategy, powered by Fivetran

Data is your organization’s secret weapon — if you know how to unlock it. It must be centralized, normalized and harmonized before it can be properly activated. The responsibility of all of these actions falls on the data team.

But, the average size of a data team? One to three people.

These small teams are tasked with turning large troves of disparate data into recurring reports, ad-hoc analysis, financial ledgers, activations and more. They hold the pipelines and the models to the data-driven success; but how do they juggle all of these responsibilities?

With efficient tools and strategies. And that’s exactly why Fivetran has built the small data team’s toolkit for centralizing and managing data. Continue reading to dive deeper into a few features that help small data teams find efficiencies and unlock the full potential of their data.

Pain point: Centralizing data is important, but building and maintaining pipelines demands constant time and resources

Solution: Use ready-built / out-of-the-box connectors to save time and resources.

What is it: Fully managed data movement for all of your sources into your destination of choice. With Fivetran’s 300+ connectors, you don’t have to worry about building or maintaining your essential pipelines that provide access to your data. These connectors span databases, SaaS connectors and more. They have analytics-ready schemas and automated schema migration, ensuring your data is always accurate, regardless of changes. If there isn’t a connector available for your source, you can participate in our new By Request program and our team can build out a new Lite connector — ensuring you have access to all of your data.

What this unlocks:

  1. No time spent building nor maintaining faulty pipelines! 
  2. You can work on turning data into insights rather than focusing on basic data movement and normalizing data. 
  3. Clear out your data project backlog (finally)! You can connect any source - by leveraging any connector in our library or by requesting a Lite Connector.

[CTA_MODULE]

Pain point: Scaling a data practice on a budget, and fear of unknown costs

Solution: Start small with usage-based pricing

What is it: Data should be accessible to all. In fact, it’s our mission at Fivetran to make access to data as simple and reliable as electricity. That includes from a pricing perspective — which is why we introduced our Free Plan earlier this year. With our Free Plan, you can begin your data movement process and scale into an appropriate plan. We also give you complete visibility and ownership over your monthly active rows (MAR) and pricing directly on your billing and usage pages. If you’re worried about your budget before adding a new source, you always try the first 14 days free so you can predict usage and costs before deciding to continue.

What this unlocks:

  1. Start on our Free Plan with low data volumes, without a credit card.
  2. Add more sources and increase your usage on your own schedule and budget — giving you complete ownership over your data and your bill.

[CTA_MODULE]

Pain point: Basic data preparation and transformation consumes time without driving the growth needle forward

Solution: Quickstart data models and dbt™ integration to automate your data transformations

What is it: Pre-built data models that transform your most used SaaS application data into analytics-ready tables, right when your Fivetran connectors finish loading. Our expert team collaborates with the community to build out the foundational data transformations needed to turn raw data into actionable tables. And, with our new Quickstart data models, you can download, orchestrate and manage these model runs with all clicks. No dbt project, 3rd party tools or coding required — just accelerated time to analytics-ready tables for your most used SaaS connectors. For any custom needs, you can also integrate, orchestrate and manage your own dbt project.

What this unlocks:

  1. Automate and manage your entire data pipeline from the Fivetran UI.
  2. Reallocate time from basic modeling work to more custom or higher impact projects - freeing up time and increasing efficiency.

Pain point: Data-driven problems that you cannot solve

Solution: Extend your data team with Fivetran’s world-class support and Community

What is it: Issues are bound to come up. If you have a small team, they can derail your entire workload. Fortunately, Fivetran’s Support team is here to help. Think of them as an extension of your own team, but specialized in all aspects of data movement. And, with Fivetran’s Community, you can connect with your peers and discuss all things data. You’ve now expanded your team tenfold.

What this unlocks:

  1. Data-driven answers to data-driven problems, at scale.
  2. Go-to-place to learn and collaborate with peers in the industry.

[CTA_MODULE]

Get inspiration from other small teams

These tools, and others, have helped many small data teams achieve greater efficiency, impact and growth. Let’s take a look at a few examples:

Hunt, Gather reduced their time to getting data and insights by 95%

The Austin-based creative agency revolutionized its data analytics and reporting capabilities, making it easier to track performance throughout the company and in client work.

  • KPI: They uncover key operational insights 95 percent faster with Fivetran and finally have reliable data on their operational costs that refresh every 15 minutes.
  • Quote: “I’ve worked at larger, global agencies with thousands of employees, and they do all of these things manually. Now that we have these automated connectors at Hunt, Gather, my plate is full of projects to implement Fivetran throughout the agency and for clients.” - Jordan Scott, Analytics & Reporting Director
  • Click here to read their full story

Yardzen built their first multi-attribution dashboard

In minutes, Yardzen's data engineering team-of-one set up worry-free data pipelines, reallocating focus from building and maintaining pipelines to value-driving opportunities.

  • KPI: They increased time for projects that generate value for the business — scaling far beyond what was previously capable for a team of one.
  • Quote: “If you're spending money and you don't know exactly what you're spending it on, it's a big deal for a small company.” - Andrea Kyrala, Data Engineering Lead
  • Click here to read their full story

Hashtag You has 3x more sources centralized than before, breaking data silos

Brand builder Hashtag You harnesses data to target lifestyle brands, reach digital audiences and improve the overall customer journey.

  • KPI: 76 data sources are currently integrated with automated pipelines — 3x the total number of its data sources in less than a year since the start of the Fivetran project!
  • Quote: "Our approach to influencer marketing is really very unique, very automated and very in-depth. With Fivetran's connectors, we can quickly and easily spin up certain pipelines and easily obtain data that's important to us." - Ashish Kalra, Data & Analytics Team Lead
  • Click here to read their full story

Code2College got out of one-off, manual spreadsheets

Code2College leverages data to give minority and low-income students more voice in the tech/STEM career space.

  • KPI: By implementing Fivetran’s Free Plan, Code2College increased data access at zero cost, and finally got out of static, manual spreadsheets
  • Quote: “The system we have built now with Fivetran is going to scale with us — at least as our data grows for the next 5 to 10 years.” - Samantha LeBlanc, former Associate Director of Data
  • Click here to read their full story

If you’re a small data team looking for better tools to tackle your data, sign up for a 14 day free trial of Fivetran.

Looking to learn more about Lite Connectors?
Click Here
See what's possible with Fivetran's Free Plan
Click here to learn more
Join the Fivetran Community
Click here to learn more

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