Case - YouKnights

A platform that retrieves data streams from 35 companies and transforms them into daily steering information.

The question

Generate financial insights for all companies in the investment portfolio.

The solution

One data platform to which all different ERP systems can be connected.

The result

Comprehensive and up-to-date insights into companies with varying revenue models.

Investor YouKnights supports the growth of over 35 companies in various sectors. In doing so, up-to-date management data is indispensable. Blenddata built a data platform that takes stock on a daily basis.

YouKnights wants to be more than just a shareholder. The investor supports its companies in various issues, such as rapid expansion, major structural change or important succession. This includes financial control, legal control and support in business processes, HR, marketing and sales. So that each company can focus on its markets and employees.

Grip and steering

Pieter van den Tillaart, Managing Partner YouKnights: “Our portfolio companies are at the helm of their own businesses, but we aim to maintain control and be able to adjust where necessary. This is how we achieve our joint goals. Up-to-date insights into business results are essential here. Because companies work with different ERP systems, this insight was difficult to obtain in the past. Moreover, we used to talk about outdated results, as more recent data was not yet available. However, together with Blenddata we established a clear scope and milestones regarding the desired financial reporting. Blenddata then advised us on a future-proof and flexible data platform to realise these goals.”

80% time savings in financial reporting

The platform automatically generates insightful reports, saving financial controllers a lot of time. Standard financial reports require 80% less manual work.

Action-driven insight

Better decisions based on up-to-date insight from the data platform. Eight standardised reports with financial insights are generated daily.

Better steering participations

Valuable insights from factual information enable YouKnights to guide companies appropriately or to further optimise processes.

Every night, financial data is retrieved from 5 different ERP systems and about 35 administrations. This is transformed into standardised reports with financial insights.

Pieter van den Tillaart

Managing Partner YouKnights

Every night, financial data is retrieved from 5 different ERP systems and about 35 administrations. This is transformed into standardised reports with financial insights.

Pieter van den Tillaart

Managing Partner YouKnights

Generic output

Blenddata developed a fully managed platform that handles financial data flows with modules for data quality and reporting.

The platform retrieves data from various source systems on a daily basis and transfers this to a smart middle layer through data pipelines. Through standardised mapping, all data is processed into generic output and transformed into eight standardised reports. YouKnights receives daily insights into all businesses in one central place, regardless of the different data structures in the underlying ERP packages.”

Switching between consolidated KPIs and detailed financial analyses

“With the advent of the data platform, we have up-to-date information on our portfolio companies anytime, anywhere and in one single environment. We can easily select a company and navigate through the information to see how things are going. In doing so, we can easily switch between consolidated company KPIs and detailed financial analyses. Moreover, due to the uniform model of the platform, which can integrate more than five different types of ERP systems, there is plenty of room for growth.”

Developing and sharing knowledge

“Our product is evolving along with Blenddata.”

“As soon as the scope is determined, Blenddata proceeds to action both energetically and decisively. Because they support us on the data side of our operations, we are left with more time to support our portfolio companies. The cooperation has been very pleasant. They work in a structured way and proactively come up with suggestions on things we sometimes haven’t thought of ourselves.”

“Blenddata is very knowledgeable about the latest technologies, tools and insights, as well as how to apply them. The team is very capable of building data platforms and facilitating secure, intelligent environments like ours. Moreover, Blenddata shares its knowledge with YouKnights: they have trained our financial controllers to be able to work well with the platform and reports.”