MakerX Partnering with Kanga to Deliver Automated Data Analytics for Small to Medium-Sized Businesses

Kanga is a pioneering startup that offers automated data analytics, reporting and performance management Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) worldwide. Focused on businesses with 10-100 employees, Kanga helps business owners, Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), advisors, and other key stakeholders make informed decisions to improve business outcomes.

The founders of Kanga, with their extensive experience in business intelligence, software development, and SMB accounting, identified a significant market gap. Existing data analytics solutions were often either inadequate or overly complex and expensive for most SMBs. As SMBs adopted various SaaS solutions, obtaining a coherent view from these disparate systems became a challenge. Kanga aimed to develop a “Minimum Sellable Product” focusing on finance and sales data to deliver a viable value proposition.

To scale up their development capabilities, Kanga turned to MakerX as a delivery partner with a broad range of skills and experience. Kanga Founder and Chief Executive Officer John Power recalls, "It wasn’t difficult for us to independently establish that MakerX met that criteria and had the capability to deliver the project." The decision to partner with MakerX was also supported by a positive reference from a trusted mutual connection. John adds, "There was no hard sell; instead, MakerX focused on understanding our business objectives and building the relationship necessary to achieve them."

MakerX Chief Technology Officer Rob Moore states, "Our ability to pull in people with the right skills at the right time, leveraging the full capabilities of the MakerX team, ensured we could successfully deliver on this highly ambitious and complex project. Our unique outcome-based delivery process, treating clients as true partners, and adapting to learnings as they emerge ensured that we built success together."

The application is based on a sophisticated, automated multi-tenant SaaS platform architecture created by MakerX, which minimises infrastructure costs while still providing robust and secure separation between tenants. Day-to-day operation of the application is completely automated, thereby reducing the operational overhead. Operational changes can be easily implemented by Kanga; this includes changing pricing through Stripe integration, enabling semi-automated infrastructure scaling during times of demand, and manually managing tenants to override defaults or diagnose issues.

Furthermore, MakerX provided a framework that allows Kanga to easily and safely make changes to semantic data models and report templates. This framework enables Kanga to add new reporting functionality without needing input from developers. Changes can be deployed in a staged fashion to individual tenants, ensuring smooth transitions and minimal disruptions.

Data analytics is inherently complex, particularly with intricate financial data that needs to be transformed into user-friendly models. Extensive testing and security measures were crucial. John notes, "The simple answer to how we overcame all the challenges over the course of the project was that a collection of smart, motivated people persisted in working hard as an integrated team to deliver the project per the plan."

Key features like chart of accounts mapping for use with common financial reporting models and handling intercompany transactions make the product stand out from competitors. The semantic data models supporting report authoring and ad-hoc analytics make data exploration fast and easy for end-users. MakerX ensured a friendly user experience by creating a logical, easy-to-navigate workflow, helping users get up to speed quickly.

The final product allows business owners to see the big picture at a glance, monitor important metrics, and gain actionable insights with minimal effort. CFOs, accountants, and finance managers save days each month by avoiding the need to run multiple report exports and manually wrangle data in Excel, enabling them to focus on analysing data to discover insights and enhance decision-making. These improvements exemplify how Kanga adds value and helps customers succeed in running their businesses, which is fundamental to Kanga’s mission.