Empowering a Data Evolution at Yext

Challenge

A complex ecosystem of legacy systems, data sources and processes led to a need for consolidation, and a migration from a legacy ETL tool to the Matillion platform.

Solution

A migration to the Matillion platform provided scalability to adapt to changing business needs and the right alignment with Yext’s future ambitions.

Results

• Faster Decision-Making: Decisions can be made more quickly when current and pertinent data is available.
• Improved Customer Experience: Yext can better understand the preferences, needs, and behaviors of its customers by analyzing their data. By using this information to tailor products, services, and marketing initiatives, customers will receive a better overall experience.
• Innovation and Product Development: By spotting untapped markets, forecasting trends, and providing guidance for product development initiatives, data-driven insights can stimulate innovation.

Yext has been shaping customer interactions for more than 15 years. Providing a tool to digitally transform traditional business directory listings, the company has transformed into a global entity, with approximately 1000 employees and reaching customers in the US, Europe, Asia, and Australia. 

At the helm of the Business Intelligence (BI) and data warehouse strategy is Tulasi Donthireddy, Director of Business Systems. Regularly interfacing with business stakeholders in sales, marketing and finance, Tulasi’s team are the source of data for the entire business. 

Yext’s digital journey began with a myriad of products designed to interface with multi-location businesses of all sizes , rooted in a deep expertise of industry topics like AI and SEO.

The data landscape at Yext, as Tulasi inherited it, was a tapestry of tech-savvy teams employing Python, Java, and custom SQL. The need for consolidation led the team to migrate from a legacy ETL tool to Matillion with the goal of streamlining ETL processes, enhancing visibility, and establishing efficient monitoring.

The team at Yext needed a flexible tool that supported major applications like Salesforce, Zuora, NetSuite and Blackline, and Matillion provided scalability and compatibility with Yext’s future ambitions. The implementation process unfolded over a few months, and started with the migration of custom jobs into Matillion. Testing, validation, and persistent commitment to efficiency resulted in the elimination of those custom jobs — a huge win for Tulasi and the data team. 

With Matillion in place, onboarding new data sources became seamless, taking no more than a week. Setting up required schemas and integrating raw data into the system was a swift process, offering quick results for business stakeholders.

To provide more insight into planning processes, Matillion’s connector for Anaplan played a crucial role in unlocking custom report-building capabilities. The ability to pre-emptively seek and pull data was important for Tulasi and his team as more data sources were being added to facilitate business processes.

A mini architecture review board was established to meet weekly and discuss future business needs, with Tulasi assessing the impact, reviewing the applications and proactively seeking the right connectors. Being ready for these requests and having the agility to move quickly became easy thanks to Matillion’s user-friendly interface. 

Monitoring efficiency and turnaround time are primary indicators of success at Yext. The new strategy ensures the team operates within established thresholds. Data quality checks are streamlined, minimizing historical reloads, and positive feedback from the business teams highlights the flexibility in reporting that Matillion provides.

Engaging with the Matillion community for feature requests has enriched Tulasi's roadmap perspective and he is excited to explore the advanced AI features that the Data Productivity Cloud platform offers.

Yext is a New York-based digital presence platform company for multi-location brands. It enables brands to deliver consistent, accurate information to customers anywhere in the digital world from one central platform.