Overwhelmed to Overachiever: Data Modernization and Scale with Snowflake

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Outgrowing In-House Data Management

Meet our client, an independent insurance brokerage firm ranked among the top 20 nationwide. With over 80 offices across the country, they're an established go-to for comprehensive insurance and financial services—business insurance, employee benefits, retirement plans, executive perks, home/auto insurance, etc.  

The challenge? This organization was on a rocket ship of growth and innovation. It's the kind of ride every business dreams of, but it comes with its own set of headaches.  

The firm collaborates with over 250 regional and national carriers, and they also provide in-house risk management and benefit plan admin services. That’s a lot of data…and a lot of responsibility to govern and secure it. And they had truly outgrown their data management abilities.

They needed a modern data solution, and that's where we came in. They chose Launch to help them, well, launch a top-notch data and analytics platform that would scale with them as the business grew.

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A Right-Sized Cloud Data Solution

So, what did the Launch Data & AI Studio do? Well, first things first, we rolled up our sleeves and got to know our client’s business from the inside out. We dug deep to understand what they needed from a data and analytics platform, and then we recommended Snowflake.  

Here's why:

• Ease of implementation: With so much personal identifying information (PII) and financial data at stake, we knew time was of the essence. Snowflake offered a quick and painless way to map and set up data models.
• Affordable and adaptable: Moving to the cloud slashed our client’s hefty on-premises costs and allowed them to scale up or down as needed. (Think of cloud storage like a grocery store salad bar—you only pay for what you eat.)
• User-friendly and versatile: Nobody wants a complicated database. Snowflake supports multiple query languages—SQL, Python, JavaScript, whatever works best for the client.
• Simple data sharing: Snowflake’s Data Cloud makes it easy to collaborate, allowing the team to share and use data from across the Snowflake community.

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Room to Grow in the Data Cloud

With client signoff and collaboration, we developed and deployed a customized cloud-based data and analytics platform using Snowflake. Here’s how it went. (Spoiler: it went well.)

1. In just two weeks, we established the data and analytics platform and started ingesting data from multiple source systems that our client uses regularly.

2. We united eight different SaaS platforms from across the company into this one platform. This meant our client could now see all the data, from all angles—clients, sales, performance metrics, and more.

3. Operational costs dropped significantly. Snowflake's subscription costs were nearly half of what they were paying for their preexisting hardware and software setup.

4. We automated multiple processes and transformed the firm’s month-end financial reporting from a 12-day marathon to a 1-day sprint. That's both time and money saved, right there.

This is not just a story about insurance. It's about how the right data platform can turbocharge your business when you're in a growth stage. With Launch’s Snowflake implementation, this fast-growing client went from an outgrown data warehouse to a modern, roomy, data-savvy powerhouse.  

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Data maturity is the key to good organizational decisions, growth trajectory, and AI readiness. Is your data doing everything it can for your organization? Take the Data Maturity Self-Assessment to find any gaps - so you're ready for your next bold move.