How European Coal and Metal Data went Digital for the first time?
Sectors
Commodities
Technologies
Microsoft Azure, ReactJS, TypeScript, NodeJS, GraphQL, ArcGIS, Highcharts
Country
United Kingdom
Challenge
Finding a partner with a track record in dealing with numerous constraints while building trust and confidence to share sensitive data in a data driven company is not an easy task.
CRU Group, leading global commodity market analysis provider, approached Exlabs to develop a highly specialised B2B analytics platform as an extension of the company’s product offering.
During an initial on-site workshop, Exlabs team impressed CRU with their ability to rapidly grasp their industry’s peculiarities and understand the drivers behind the project.
Ultimately, the portal’s goal was to help specialists understand the market, as well as plan and calculate the costs of commodities based on the aggregated data analysis. The challenge involved processing an extensive MSSQL database containing tens of millions of rows of data, while providing the end users near real-time results.
Process & Scope of Work
The process started with designing intuitive usability to facilitate platform adoption, as well as lucid visualisation tools to allow for easy comparisons of complex data. By establishing clear communication and reporting practices, we allowed our client to see the project’s progress and effectively mitigate potential risks and problems.
The portal needed to fit into the CRU’s client ecosystem by integrating with existing Single Sign On solution as well as data authorisation API. We’ve leveraged Azure DevOps and introduced a set of CI/CD practices which allow us to rapidly deploy new updates and test our hypotheses. In order to achieve expected performance, we’ve introduced GraphQL which matched with cache optimisation and SPA frontend architecture built in ReactJS, allowed us to provide near real-time experience.
Results
Together with the CRU Group we’ve developed a tool that helps the main market actors do their job more efficiently by providing the most current data for decision-making and strategic analysis.
The Cloud nature of the portal helped CRU expand its business model, increase sales and position itself as an innovative market leader. The platform transformed how commodities analysts consume market data. Instead of processing static documents and spreadsheets, they have instant access to real-time data from the sites around the world.
Exlabs continues to support the client with product maintenance and evolution driven by the end users’ feedback.