Thinklytics

Lumen Technologies Division · Technology & SaaS · Denver, CO · 26 weeks

9 legacy reporting systems consolidated into one

A regional telecom had nine reporting systems from years of acquisitions. Their monthly close took 18 days because of manual reconciliation across these systems. We merged all data into one Snowflake platform, cutting the close process to 3 days and saving $3.1 million each year.

Challenge

The company had 9 reporting systems, each inherited from separate acquisitions. They operated on different databases, used inconsistent metric definitions, and were managed by separate teams. Closing the books took 18 days and required 14 analysts to manually reconcile data. Maintaining these systems cost $3.1 million annually.

Approach

We spent four weeks mapping nine systems, their data models, and how they connected. Next, we created a unified Snowflake environment with a shared semantic layer. Over 22 weeks, we migrated each system one by one. Each migration included a four-week parallel run to ensure stability before shutting down the old system.

Outcome

We consolidated nine systems in week 26, cutting annual infrastructure costs from $3.1 million to $480,000. The monthly close cycle shrank from 18 days to just 3. This freed up a 14-person reconciliation team, who we reassigned to strategic analytics projects.

How We Spotted Data Issues Before Merging the Systems

In just four weeks, we found three systems, each costing around $800K a year in licenses. And get this, fewer than 10 people were actually using them. No brainer, right? We shut them down right away to stop the money drain. After that, we turned our attention to consolidating the rest.

We ran both systems side by side so we could spot migration hiccups early, way before they became costly messes.

We kept the old systems running alongside Snowflake for about a month. This way, the business team could double-check the data, and we caught any weird edge cases that slipped through during the switch.

How We Helped the Reconciliation Team Crush Their Workflow Roadblocks

Alright, here’s what happened. Fourteen analysts were buried, spending around 18 days a month just on manual reconciliation. Crazy, right? All that time wasted on busywork instead of pushing projects ahead. This went on for over a year and really held back the analytics team. We stepped in, helped them flip the script, and wiped out the backlog. Suddenly, the bottleneck was gone, and productivity took off. Even the CFO caught on and gave us props.

Results

  • $3.1M Annual infrastructure savings
  • 18 days to 3 days Monthly close cycle
  • 9 to 1 Reporting systems consolidated
  • 26 wks Full consolidation timeline

We were tied to those nine systems for 12 years because nobody wanted to deal with them. Thinklytics pulled everything together in 26 weeks, and we cut our monthly close from 18 days down to 3. Now, the team that used to handle reconciliation is focused on analysis.

VP of Finance and Analytics, Regional Telecom Provider

In the client's terms

The question

What breaks when these systems become one?

The situation

Nine reporting systems, each inherited from a different acquisition, on different databases with different metric definitions and different teams. The monthly close took 18 days and fourteen analysts reconciling by hand. Keeping the nine alive cost $3.1M a year.

What we found

The nine systems were not nine technical problems. They were nine sets of definitions nobody had reconciled, and the fourteen analysts were the reconciliation layer. Consolidating the infrastructure without settling the definitions would have produced one system that still disagreed with itself.

What it produced

Nine became one in week 26. Infrastructure cost fell from $3.1M a year to $480K. The close went from 18 days to 3. The fourteen-person reconciliation team moved to analytics work that had been waiting.

The roadmap

Four weeks mapping the nine systems, their models and their dependencies before anything moved. A single Snowflake environment with a shared semantic layer underneath it. Then 22 weeks migrating one system at a time, each with a four-week parallel run so the old one was only switched off once the new one had been proved against it.

The work behind this result

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Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to consolidate nine reporting systems?

Twenty-six weeks at a Lumen Technologies division. Four weeks went to mapping the systems and their dependencies before anything moved, then 22 weeks migrating one at a time, each with a four-week parallel run so no system was switched off until its replacement had been proved against it.

What does running duplicate reporting systems cost?

This division was spending $3.1M a year on nine systems inherited through acquisition, and the monthly close took 18 days with fourteen analysts reconciling by hand. After consolidation infrastructure cost fell to $480K and the close to 3 days.

Is system consolidation a technical problem or a definitions problem?

Both, and the definitions come first. The nine systems here carried nine sets of metric definitions nobody had reconciled, and the fourteen analysts were the reconciliation layer. Consolidating infrastructure without settling definitions produces one system that still disagrees with itself.