Overview
In today’s private equity driven environment, operational clarity is no longer optional. Finance and data leaders must deliver real time insight, empower their teams, and modernize without disrupting the business. Foley Products was facing exactly this challenge. Their reporting was manual, siloed, and slow at a moment when speed and accountability mattered most. What follows is a look at how Analytic Vizion helped them move from legacy limitations to a scalable and human centered analytics foundation that restored clarity, confidence, and momentum.
The Challenge
Foley Products, a leading independent manufacturer of reinforced concrete pipe and precast products, was navigating a period of rapid change. A historically family-run business, Foley had recently brought in a private equity partner whose expectations for data transparency and agility were high. But the company’s legacy reporting systems were deeply entrenched in traditional tools like Crystal Reports, PDFs, and Excel spreadsheets.
As Ian Crabtree stepped into the CFO role, he faced a common yet complex equation: an overwhelming manual reporting burden, siloed data streams, and a lack of actionable insights. Reports were distributed with great effort and limited connectivity between sales, operations, customer, and vendor data. Stakeholders were unable to access real-time insights or respond nimbly to market demands.
Adding urgency, the private equity timeline demanded swift results. Ian needed a solution that not only modernized the tech stack but also empowered his internal team—without overengineering the user experience or disrupting ongoing operations.
Our Approach
After a less-than-transformational experience with a prior system integrator, Foley Products turned to Analytic Vizion to reimagine its data journey. Foley’s technical foundation included Snowflake for cloud warehousing, dbt for data transformation, and Sigma for business intelligence. While the previous vendor had implemented the infrastructure, they left the internal team unprepared to sustain or scale the solution.
Analytic Vizion approached the engagement with a fundamentally different philosophy: people-first enablement, strategic clarity, and iterative collaboration.
Key steps in the approach included:
Agile Roadmap Execution: AV adapted quickly to changing priorities, personnel shifts, and emerging opportunities, operating as a trusted partner throughout.
Empathetic Discovery: The AV team engaged deeply with Ian and his stakeholders to clarify goals, identify friction points, and align the roadmap with business strategy—not just technical requirements.
Empowerment Through Enablement: Rather than simply delivering dashboards, AV prioritized upskilling Foley’s internal resources—training the team on dbt, Snowflake, and especially Sigma so they could manage, expand, and evolve the solution themselves.
Strategic Sigma Adoption: Given the team’s comfort with Excel, Sigma was chosen as the primary interface. Its spreadsheet-native feel provided a low-friction transition to modern analytics, enabling rapid user adoption while unlocking powerful data exploration capabilities.
The How
Foley Products’ solution was built on a modern cloud analytics stack with a heavy emphasis on accessibility and scalability:
- Snowflake served as the centralized data warehouse, allowing for secure, performant storage and fast querying across business domains.
- dbt (data build tool) orchestrated the transformation of raw data into analysis-ready models, ensuring consistency and reusability across departments.
- Sigma Computing became the crown jewel of the implementation. Its Excel-like interface dramatically eased adoption for business users, while offering powerful capabilities like row-level security, embedded dashboards, and live Snowflake querying—all without requiring deep technical expertise.
- Analytic Vizion’s Methodology emphasized cross-functional collaboration, from clarifying reporting needs with business stakeholders to training analysts on how to build and own new Sigma content.
The shift from manual, disconnected reporting to an integrated, real-time analytics platform wasn’t just technical—it was transformational. Foley Products now stands on a foundation that enables smarter decisions, faster pivots, and a clear line of sight into future opportunities.
Tools & Technology
Snowflake: Central cloud data platform, enabling fast, secure access to unified data
dbt: Structured and version-controlled data models to standardize KPIs and metrics
Sigma Computing: Key interface for users—providing Excel-like usability with modern BI power. Sigma’s live connection to Snowflake allows real-time dashboards and data exploration without the need for SQL skills
By leaning into Sigma, we bridged the gap between Excel comfort and advanced analytics—making adoption seamless and impactful.
The Results
The transformation was swift and substantial. Reporting timelines collapsed, manual data work virtually disappeared, and the business began making more strategic decisions fueled by integrated, real-time insights.
Key outcomes included:
- Empowered Talent: Foley’s FP&A lead reclaimed an hour each day previously spent copying, pasting, and distributing Excel reports. That time is now reinvested in higher-value, strategic analysis and business engagement.
- Accelerated Decision-Making: Stakeholders now access live data across departments, eliminating reporting lag and enabling more nimble, informed actions.
- Elevated Employee Experience: Team members feel valued and empowered, no longer buried in monotonous tasks but actively contributing to company growth.
- Lasting Capability: Unlike the prior vendor, AV left the team stronger and more self-sufficient, fostering long-term data literacy and ownership.
Perhaps most importantly, Ian noted that the partnership elevated both dignity and impact within his team—a cultural shift as much as a technical one.
Key Takeaways
Empowered Internal Teams Through Enablement, Not Dependency: Analytic Vizion didn’t just deliver dashboards—they trained Foley’s team to own their analytics journey, transforming them from passive recipients into confident, capable users of Sigma and dbt.
Rapid, Scalable Insights Aligned to Business Needs:
By integrating Snowflake, dbt, and Sigma, Foley moved from siloed, manual reporting to real-time, connected insights—supporting faster, smarter decision-making across the business.
Modern Tools with Familiar Usability Drove Adoption:
Sigma’s spreadsheet-like interface bridged the gap between legacy Excel use and modern BI, allowing for quick adoption without compromising power or scalability.
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