HelloFresh has enlisted the help of cloud-based data management software provider Informatica to help it improve its sales forecasting processes.
The meal kit company operates in 17 countries and claims to have delivered 287.3 million meals to 8.5 million customers during the first quarter of 2022 alone. It has seen its business grow rapidly over the past five years on the back of several acquisitions and an initial public offering.
According to HelloFresh, all this growth created a series of data management challenges for the company as the volume and complexity of the information flowing through it increased.
David Castro-Gavino, global vice-president of data at HelloFresh, described data as the company’s “most precious resource”.
“Working with Informatica, we have been able to serve it up as a strategic asset to teams across the business, who use it to accelerate our mission to change the way people eat,” he said.
“By empowering our teams with access to the right data at the right time and the know-how to use it, we can continue to offer customers fresh, healthy, affordable meals tailored to their tastes.”
The company has a global in-house IT department, known as HelloTech, that is staffed with almost 1,000 software and data engineers, data scientists, product managers and analysts who are responsible for making the company’s data easier to digest and make sense of.
It is reportedly one of the company’s fastest-growing teams, having doubled in size over the past 24 months.
“This team plays a critical role in democratising data across the business, enabling teams to make business decisions and deliver product innovations that are based on solid analysis of millions of data points,” said HelloFresh in a statement.
“HelloFresh operates in a data-driven way. Data is not only a resource for technological improvements and scaling the business, but is also the base of every team’s day-to-day work. All business decisions, including product innovations, are based on the analysis of millions of data points to build a desirable product for customers.”
The company has been making use of Informatica’s portfolio of data management products and services, including its Enterprise Data Catalog, to boost its data transparency and make it easier for its tech team to work with.
The company statement added: “Today, with the help of Informatica’s Axon Data Governance solutions, HelloFresh has increased its ability to deliver trusted, relevant data to users across the business, reducing the time from data to insight. This is noticeable in domains and teams that embarked on the data governance journey as early adopters.”
Jitesh Ghai, chief product officer at Informatica, said: “HelloFresh is a fantastic example of an intelligent data enterprise – harnessing data as a strategic asset to fuel innovation, improve customer service and drive impressive growth.
“We look forward to working together as they continue their data-driven journey, democratising data at scale across the business to foster fast-paced innovation.”