Octane Lending Saves 200 Hours per Month of Engineering Effort with Atlan – Atlan


Main Lender for Powersports Reduces Questions on Knowledge by 40% with Documentation and Self-service

Based in 2014, Octane® (Octane Lending, Inc.) is a specialty lender, providing immediate financing to shoppers buying powersports autos like bikes, snowmobiles, private watercraft, ATVs, and extra.

Traditionally, information at Octane has been synonymous with monetary reporting. Octane is a expertise firm and non-bank lender which derives vital income from mortgage securitizations, putting calls for on correct reporting, delivered beneath strict deadlines. With these reporting necessities, Octane’s information capabilities have been sturdy, however have been targeted on mission-critical obligations, and never essentially on conventional enterprise intelligence.

Alex Bendix, Knowledge Product Supervisor, joined Octane to make sure enterprise intelligence bought the main focus it deserved, had the correct staff and expertise to help it, and was well-adopted by information shoppers that might profit from it.

“We carved out a brand new staff to deal with information wants that weren’t associated to monetary reporting,” Alex shared. “We’re targeted on constructing the muse for enterprise intelligence, supporting something from particular person product managers doing advert hoc evaluation, to dashboarding and reporting, primary forecasting, all the way in which out to predictive machine studying fashions that our information science staff is constructing.”

Two separate information groups now exist at Octane, one targeted on monetary reporting, and the opposite on enterprise intelligence, comprising Knowledge Engineers, a Knowledge Analyst, and a Product Supervisor and Engineering Supervisor guiding every staff. And supporting these capabilities is a contemporary information stack starting with AWS infrastructure, and together with Athena, Redshift, Airflow, and Tableau.

Partly because of monetary reporting previous a proper information & analytics perform, Octane’s information practitioners are sometimes siloed, with totally different components of the enterprise using their very own analytics groups, and no single centralized analytics perform.

“Knowledge has been pivotal for us to have the ability to advance as an organization for thus a few years. However groups have been utilizing information in several methods,” Alex defined. “There are totally different ranges of scrutiny relying on the use case. Somebody on our Finance staff who’s producing reporting that can go to rankings companies, or these buying in debt markets, are going to have very totally different wants from somebody on our Gross sales staff who’s trying to perceive conversion metrics at totally different dealerships.”

Whereas these capabilities might have been siloed, the information they used of their evaluation was usually from the identical sources, which might result in divergent views over use shared information, and myriad methods of calculating and visualizing data. With out centralized documentation, and a standard understanding of their information property, a shared language for, and method to, information couldn’t exist.

Step one was arising with documentation. That was the actually, actually tough half. Pre-Covid, we have been usually all in New York (and loads smaller), so you can simply resolve information questions in individual. As soon as the pandemic hit, you can now not be in the identical room as somebody and say, ‘Hey, just be sure you’re taking a look at this information, not that information.’ However then, the following precedence was making that data simply usable. We had all that data obtainable in spreadsheets accessed by clicking by 5 pages on Octane’s intranet. So we acknowledged that the corporate was giant sufficient that it wanted to be a simple, frictionless expertise to entry that documentation in a unified approach.

With a shared understanding of their information rising inside Octane, their subsequent step was clear, to discover a information catalog that might function a single, simply navigable residence for his or her property.

For Octane’s wants, spanning compatibility with their trendy information stack, enablement for a variety of customers from technical to non-technical, and empathy with their wants as an information staff, Atlan proved to be the proper match.

“By way of why Atlan stood out, I believe it simply does lots of issues. Plenty of totally different instruments are good at explicit issues like documentation, or their querying engine.I believe the great factor about Atlan was that it felt fairly intuitive when it comes to how issues have been all looped collectively and it felt like there was lots of alternative to broaden. Clearly the staff that had constructed the product have been information customers, themselves, and it felt like there was an excellent understanding of what of us like us have been truly experiencing on the bottom,” Alex shared.

Realizing that Atlan wanted an inner champion at Octane with the intention to be adopted, Alex drew on his Product Administration background and started analyzing what his potential customers would want, constructing necessities for a self-service glossary beneficial sufficient to be adopted persistently by information shoppers.

“My technique was that I needed customers to consider within the platform, and for Atlan to have vital credibility. And in terms of documentation, in the event you seek for a standard, primary desk, it’s best to have the ability to see documentation. Each second you go in there and don’t see what you want, you lose religion on this information market,” Alex shared.

Starting with groups of information shoppers, Alex started asking what three to 5 tables are most essential to their on a regular basis work. Then, working again from these required tables to their inner house owners, he ensured that subject material specialists have been documenting their information and sharing it in a simple-to-consume format.

“The actually tough half was motivating subject material specialists to truly put in all this data. Plenty of it was simply brute power the place I stated, ‘I’ll actually simply sit on a Zoom name and you’ll simply inform me this dwell, I’ll file it, and we’ll get it in Atlan.’ However the good factor was, as soon as we bought the primary couple of information dictionaries put collectively, it nearly felt like a rumor the place it was like, ‘Oh, I’ve heard that staff did it. Okay fantastic, we’ll do it too.’ It created a tradition of sharing and information documentation.”

And with the information that his colleagues desire to take the quickest and easiest path to finishing their work, he shaped a collection of displays, demos, and movies dubbed “Atlan College”, providing it on to his colleagues that may get probably the most profit, and approaching staff leaders to encourage their groups to undertake it.

“In our first month we had fewer than 5 weekly energetic customers, then it was 10 weekly energetic customers. And for context, now in some months now we have 50 – 60  month-to-month energetic customers. Issues have grown exponentially,” Alex defined. “I made it my private mission to evangelize Atlan at each alternative as a result of I spotted with one in every of these instruments, individuals are solely going to make use of it if their coworkers and colleagues are utilizing it, and if it’s clear that it may possibly make their lives simpler. There was an actual alternative to be much more environment friendly.”

A profitable rollout of Atlan, sturdy documentation, and buy-in from subject material specialists and information shoppers alike, meant that Alex and his staff have been able to measure the impression that self-service made on Octane.

Alex saved a detailed eye on a key inner metric: The quantity of questions and solutions in an inner Slack channel for information help. Knowledge shoppers from throughout Octane would place their questions on information into the channel, the place information engineers could be answerable for answering them. Whereas some questions have been related, oftentimes these requests have been easy, starting from primary details about metrics, to the character of present dashboards, or why a spreadsheet didn’t look fairly proper.

However by making their information property searchable in Atlan, appending wealthy context and documentation to these property, and enabling self-service for information shoppers, the variety of messages lowered by 40% in simply three months, saving the staff 200 hours per 30 days.

“You used to have folks asking questions like, ‘Hey, the place do I discover an utility? The place do I discover somebody’s title?’ And with Atlan, all you might want to do is search somebody’s title, it’s completed,” Alex shared. “Plenty of the wants have been quite simple questions, and other people not understanding self-serve. It was actually gratifying to have that north star metric of the variety of occasions we have been requested questions in public channels. Atlan lowered it actually, actually considerably.

Every engineer was answering questions 10 to twenty% of their time. And then you definately multiply that over a sure variety of staff throughout the staff, that’s tons of of hours per 30 days that you just’re dropping when it comes to productiveness. Having the ability to have everybody be a bit bit extra targeted led to much more time spent on the issues that truly transfer the needle. And for us, that’s setting the muse for enterprise intelligence on the firm. Serving to these information scientists, serving to these analysts, serving to these PMs who’re attempting to get extra information savvy.”

Key to Alex’s success in evangelizing for Atlan with management and shoppers alike is his steadfast dedication to quantification. With the potential impression of his staff’s work measured from the beginning, Alex is ready to merely and rapidly justify the trouble of his applications, and supply compelling reasoning for customers to undertake Atlan.

“For me, quantification is often simply that you just’re driving extra income or decreasing prices. And in the event you’re decreasing prices, it’s an apparent direct price, or an oblique price, like time saved. It’s fairly easy to have a look at time saved by determining the variety of folks affected by one thing, what number of hours you’re saving every week, and to give you a blended folks price,” Alex defined.

With that blended folks price in place, Alex then identifies the common consumer affected by the enhancements he goals to implement, merely multiplying the time saved by their efforts by what the total compensation of that consumer or customers may be.

“My recommendation is to be prepared to work with ambiguity and give you estimates. It’s higher to give you an estimate, have somebody problem it, then refine it, than it’s to say nothing in any respect,” Alex shared. “Then, be sure you’re screaming that from the rooftops as a lot as attainable. That’s both grassroots in particular person conversations with folks, and that’s additionally in giant displays or with management. Take each alternative to speak about all these metrics you got here up with. It’s worthwhile to be your personal greatest advocate.

With so a lot of Octane’s information shoppers changing into extra savvy because of Atlan and the context Alex and his staff geared up the platform with, sudden advantages proceed to come up.

We had at the very least ten folks that had by no means touched information earlier than utilizing Atlan. They needed to work with different folks and ask ‘Hey, are you able to get this information for me?’ And on account of Atlan, they felt empowered to question information, themselves,” Alex shared. “That may not sound like that large of a deal to somebody who’s tremendous information fluent, however for lots of people who’ve satisfied themselves they’re not technical, that’s an enormous confidence booster. Atlan allowed folks which might be quantitatively inclined or analytically inclined and have the ability to extract information for their very own analytical tasks.

Whereas Octane as soon as had a chasm of information literacy between its technical groups and its information shoppers, Atlan is giving Alex’s colleagues that could be analytically inclined, however not technical specialists, the instruments they should apply information themselves. 

“I really feel like working with lots of of us at Octane that have been analytically inclined, however didn’t essentially have the actual instruments to do this was actually, actually thrilling. I believe that that creates a greater tradition of respect throughout the groups. There’s a a lot deeper understanding when of us like product managers, or folks in management, really feel much more snug entering into and pulling the information themselves. There’s simply extra empathy when folks have a greater concept of what their coworkers are doing.”

Even having tons of of hours of effort responding to information requests, and opening up information to customers who’ve by no means used it earlier than, Alex and his staff’s ambitions for Atlan stay bold, with a deal with driving extra worth with key customers, and constructing a world-class staff of technical specialists.

“We’re on the level the place now we have as many as 70 month-to-month energetic customers. That’s not 100% of people that use information at Octane, however that’s fairly shut,” Alex shared. “Now, we’ve switched from a penetration viewpoint to a utilization quantity growth throughout the consumer base that we’ve penetrated.”

Whereas a small variety of customers at Octane won’t use Atlan, as their information wants are low and rare, Alex refers to a “center group” of customers that do have wants for information, and use it in various levels. With Atlan established as Octane’s catalog of file, their information engineering staff is tough at work rising the variety of customers which might be conscious Atlan can assist, and are utilizing it actively.

And past the apparent profit yielded by their information shoppers, Alex is happy for his staff to develop in functionality and imaginative and prescient, alongside their newfound partnership with Atlan.

“I’m excited for Octane and Atlan to develop in parallel. Atlan is continuous to construct out new options and so they’re getting each more and more broad and more and more particular. It’s nice to see the corporate simply proceed to supply an increasing number of performance that we are able to work with. And I’m excited for us to maneuver up that adoption curve ourselves and begin to have even an increasing number of superior academics of Atlan. I would like our most superior customers to be on par with any of probably the most superior customers from every other firm. And I believe doing that may actually be an indicator that we’re persisting on this data-driven tradition.”

Picture by Blue Ribbon on Unsplash

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