Current Data Stack Inventory: Usage, Ownership & Friction for AcmeFlow
Client:
AcmeFlow, a B2B SaaS platform for workflow automation
70 employees | Series A funding | $10M ARR
1. Current Tooling Overview
Introduction:
This map outlines the tools currently in use across ingestion, storage, transformation, analysis, and compliance. It highlights ownership gaps, redundancy risks, and tooling friction points.
Tool | Category | Purpose | Primary Team | Notes & Friction | Monthly Cost | Recommendation |
Fivetran | Ingestion | Pulls data from apps to Snowflake | Data Eng | Duplicate with Segment, expensive | £850 | Consolidate |
Snowflake | Warehouse | Central storage | Data Eng | Strong setup, but costs poorly managed | £2,300 | Add usage monitoring |
dbt Cloud | Transformation | Models and tests business logic | Data Eng | Inconsistent testing | £300 | Improve CI + testing coverage |
Metabase | BI / Reporting | Exploratory dashboards | Product | Slow load, unclear metric definitions | £400 | Define KPI layer |
Segment | CDP / Tracking | Tracks product events | Product Eng | Underused, overlapping Fivetran usage | £900 | Deprecate or reconfigure |
OneTrust | Consent / Compliance | Cookie & consent management | Legal / Ops | Not implemented fully in product flow | £450 | Run implementation audit |
Key:
- Red cells: Risk/Redundancy
- Yellow cells: Opportunity to optimise
- Green cells: High-value, well-integrated
2. Gaps, Risks & Strategic Recommendations
Section A: Stack Gaps
Category | Missing or Underused Tooling | Impact |
Metrics Layer | No centralised KPI logic (LookML/dbt metrics) | Inconsistent metrics across teams |
Access Governance | No automated RBAC or tagging | Risk of overexposure to sensitive data |
Monitoring | No warehouse cost monitoring tool | Budget drift, opaque query behaviour |
Section B: Tooling Redundancies
Overlap | Risk | Suggested Action |
Segment + Fivetran | Duplicate ingestion spend | Audit and consolidate to one |
Notion + Metabase | Reporting split across tools | Define source of truth |
Section C: Strategic Recommendations (Next 30–90 Days)
- Tool Consolidation Plan
- Sunset Segment or narrow scope
- Optimise Fivetran sync schedules
- Governance Layer Setup
- Define access levels by team
- Tag PII fields in dbt or warehouse
- KPI Consistency Phase 1
- Identify 5 core metrics
- Assign ownership and document sources
- Warehouse Monitoring
- Implement query cost visibility
- Introduce warehouse cleanup standards