“Everything starts with data. We want concrete and reliable data, so that we can plan for the future and make the necessary changes to generate our customers the best profit.” Harri Retkin, CFO, Avara.
Avara is a professional investors’ strategic partner in the field of residential real estate investment. Its business model revolves around managing, developing, and increasing the value of residential real estate assets.
Forward-looking analytics with modern tools
The main goal in Avara and Kaito’s collaboration was to completely renew the current data and BI system's architecture. Avara’s previous architecture was rather complex and expensive to run and develop on leading to under use of data. Avara's vision is not only to minimize administrative work, but also to transition to a more forward-looking data driven business. This will help Avara to optimize the profitability of their customers in various market conditions.
“One could say we have fairly easy years behind us. The times of negative and zero interests have led to the fact that it has been possible to make gains from low yield requirements pushing the property values up. Right now the ability to manage the accounts in a way that the profits increase, i.e. rental profits increase and costs decrease, is emphasized. This makes data the key factor in reaching our goals”, says Harri Retkin the CFO of Avara.
Kaito Fast Track – Data Platform
Kaito is building a modern Data Platform for Avara using cutting-edge Azure and Snowflake technologies. Avara selected a productized service Kaito Fast Track that combines standard data platform architecture, a robust code base, templates, and a flexible delivery methodology. Kaito Fast Track, enables rapid delivery of tangible results and a framework for providing ongoing value to the organization.
Organizations trust in data is crucial.
The focus was not only to simplify the architecture but to increase the organizations trust on data. Modern tools allow greatly enhanced transparency and auditability but even more important is to focus on processes and development methodologies. To gain the trust of business professionals the new approach needs to be transparent and collaborative.
“We’d like to add that establishing trust is crucial. With the previous system we didn’t have good understanding of the complex system. It led to trust issues with the data. With Kaito’s new system our business professionals have been able to trust the data right from the beginning. That is extremely important, as one leads with data”, Harri Retkin sums up.
Avara wanted to have a partner onboard that brought in expertise and extra hands but didn’t want to lose track on what is done. That’s how Kaito came into the picture. Kaito's role in this undertaking was not only to implement the systems, but to help and mentor Avara on development processes and change management. The Fast Track approach allows Avara to keep the option open to administrate and develop data products internally.
True agile development ensures the right direction
Using the Kaito’s Fast Track model the collaboration was carried out in a reciprocal manner. In the regularly occurring sprints Avara and Kaito discussed what to develop further and which changes shoud be implemented. The new data was validated as early as possible by Avaras business professionals. This type of ongoing shared feedback and development work has worked well in Kaito’s Fast Track model.
“Working with data has changed quite a lot through this project. We have been able to cut all the unnecessary duplicates and middlemen out. Cost-efficiency increased considerably as the previous system was quite heavy - and so were the costs. With Kaito’s much lighter model we managed to cut down the costs big time”, says Financial Manager Marianne Lindlöf.
Avara recommends Kaito especially for projects where the customer wants coaching and mentoring. Kaito is genuinely present in the customer’s journey – they don’t just slap technology solutions to the table. They make sure that the customers can keep on administrating and developing the system on their own, too. This kind of support along the way is highly important and appreciated by Avara.