Schüttflix, a construction marketplace, uses Fivetran as its digital building block

“The Fivetran team has been able to answer every question I’ve had so far, and they have people in there who really understand what we’re doing. Sometimes you have vendors who understand their product, but not the industry. Not so with Fivetran.”
— Alexander Rupp, Head of Data and Business Intelligence, Schüttflix

Schüttflix is a German logistics start-up that supplies sand, gravel and grit to the construction industry. By digitally connecting suppliers, carriers and buyers through its B2B platform, the company has disrupted traditional supply chains, speeding up transactions while reducing costs. First launched in Germany, the company is now expanding into Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic on the back of a $50m funding round.

The Challenge: Enabling data-driven decision making

Launched in 2018 with a clear mission, Schüttflix wanted to bring digital processes to ‘a pen and paper industry’ and transform highly localised supply chains. The founders knew that data would be important, providing internal and external stakeholders with the best data to make informed decisions. Tasked with building a modern data stack, Alexander Rupp, Head of Data and Business Intelligence, started by evaluating the connectors that could tap into key data sources. 

Fivetran emerged as the best fit for the business because it was fast and reliable. Rupp was setting up connectors in an hour, something that would have taken weeks otherwise. 

“The great thing about Fivetran is that it actually enabled us to build an entire data warehouse within a couple of weeks."
— Alexander Rupp, Head of Data & Business Intelligence, Schuttflix

The Solution: Building an overarching architecture

With the modern data stack in place and Fivetran as the automated pipeline, the data team grew to five and the business began to benefit from new insights. For the first time, customers could be tracked from the lead stage to being brought onboard as an official customer, by integrating data from HubSpot and MySQL databases. 

Dashboards detailing suppliers and the carriers who transport the materials are used by around 70 of the company’s 135 employees. Sales, Marketing, Finance, Product and Account Managers are able to drill down into insights of a highly localised business.

By constantly monitoring regional construction site supply chains, the company has been able to excel at enabling the timely delivery of materials. Key to success has been monitoring customer feedback, using data to identify pain points and increase customer satisfaction. Feedback loops include slack bots that trigger individualized alerts for colleagues from the back office or field sales, based on data in BigQuery and triggered by Google Cloud Functions.

The Results: Growth through transparency and visibility 

Schüttflix has dramatically transformed a traditional supply chain. The digital business has facilitated the delivery of over 2.9 million tonnes of construction bulk-materials since launch and grown by over 400% between January and September 2021. Fivetran is part of the digital toolset that contributed to the growth, according to Alexander Rupp.

“Data insights have smoothed operations from a supply chain perspective; they have increased transparency and growth in our German-wide and soon-to-be Eastern European networks,” he said. “And Fivetran has definitely saved us money. I’m setting up connectors to data sources in an hour; a process that took weeks when I did it on my own.” 

Data-driven insights have forged a culture of continual improvement that enhances operational effectiveness. Big wins include building reports more quickly and easily, analysing sales for incentivising the team, and forecasting turnover based on current project values. Maybe the biggest win of all is having visibility over the ratio between customers, suppliers and carriers, making sure the balance is right to sustain a digital marketplace in small geographic areas.  

“A healthy supply chain network depends on having the right ratio of partners in the 50 kilometres around a construction site.” explained Rupp. And he stresses that it’s still early days. The plan is to develop from descriptive to predictive analytics and to start making dashboards available to customers and partners of the marketplace.  

Alexander Rupp clearly believes he has found the right partner for the journey. “The Fivetran team has been able to answer every question I’ve had so far, and they have people in there who really understand what we’re doing. Sometimes you have vendors who understand their product, but not the industry. Not so with Fivetran,” he said.

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