Solution
Business Intelligence
Ask Your Own Company a Question
Most mid-sized companies are data-rich and answer-poor. The information is spread across a CRM, an ERP, a warehouse, a dozen spreadsheets and the head of the one person who has been there longest. The work is making it answerable.
“The data exists somewhere. Getting an answer takes three days and a favour.”
How you know
You probably have this problem if…
- Every board pack is assembled by hand and is slightly out of date on arrival
- Two departments quote different numbers for the same metric
- Analysis requests queue behind whoever knows SQL
- Decisions wait on reporting rather than reporting supporting decisions
The change
What the workflow looks like before and after.
Amber marks a step the system performs. Solid ink marks one a person still performs. The count above each column is how many steps still need someone's attention.
Today
6 human steps- Performed by A person
Manager needs a number
- Performed by A person
Emails the analyst
- Performed by A person
Analyst joins three exports
By hand, in a spreadsheet
- Performed by A person
Number returned
Three days later
- Performed by A person
Definition questioned
Work partially repeated
- Performed by A person
Decision already made without it
After
3 human steps- Performed by A person
Manager asks in plain language
- Performed by Automated
Query built against the metric layer
- Performed by System
Governed data returned
Permission-aware
- Performed by Automated
Answer with source and timestamp
- Performed by A person
Checks the query if it matters
- Performed by A person
Decides, same meeting
- Automated
- A person
- System
- Customer
The system
What this looks like running in a business.
The same components we build with.
Asked in plain language
“Which accounts are overdue by more than 30 days, and what changed since last month?”
Query it ran
select account, days_overdue, balance from finance.receivables where days_overdue > 30 and period = current_period
Source: finance warehouse · refreshed 06:15 today · permission-aware
- Harlow Group · 47 days£62,400
- Calder Holdings · 38 days£28,100
- Northgate Partners · 34 days£12,900
Up £19,300 on last month. The movement is Harlow Group, which crossed 30 days on the 11th.
Metric layer — agreed once, in writing
Overdue counts from invoice due date, not issue date, and excludes accounts in a formal payment plan. Two departments defined this differently before the engagement — which is why their numbers disagreed.
It does not generate numbers. It generates a query, runs it against governed data, and shows both so the answer can be checked.
The work does not disappear. It moves — and the steps left are the ones that needed a person.
Koderead · scope of authority
What we build
Four things, in this order.
A defined metric layer
Before any AI touches it, we agree what 'active customer' and 'gross margin' actually mean, once, in writing. Disagreement here is the real reason your numbers conflict.
Natural-language querying over governed data
Managers ask in plain language and get an answer with the query, the source and the timestamp shown — so it can be checked rather than trusted blindly.
Scheduled narrative reporting
The weekly pack assembles itself, including the commentary on what moved and why, ready for a human to review and sign.
Permission-aware answers
The system respects the access rules you already have. A regional manager's question returns that region's data.
Boundaries
What stays with a person.
Agreed in writing before the build, not discovered afterwards.
- Every answer shows its query and source — we do not ship an oracle you cannot audit
- Statutory and board reporting is always reviewed and signed by a person
- The system declines rather than estimates when the data does not support an answer
- Access permissions are inherited from your existing identity system, never re-implemented
Integrations
We connect to what you already run.
Replacing a working system mid-transformation adds risk without adding value. If the existing tool genuinely cannot support the workflow, we say so at assessment rather than three months into a build.
- BigQuery
- Snowflake
- Postgres
- Power BI
- Metabase
- Looker
- dbt
- Excel / Sheets
More specific
Narrower services under this capability.
If you arrived looking for one of these by name, each page answers it directly — including where the honest answer is that you need something else.
Questions we get
Asked and answered.
We do not have a data warehouse. Is this out of reach?
No, but be realistic about sequence. For most mid-sized companies the first phase is consolidating a few sources into one governed place. That is unglamorous and it is the part that determines whether anything later works.
Can it just read our spreadsheets?
It can, and for a narrow question that is sometimes the right answer. It is not a foundation. Spreadsheets have no access control, no change history and no agreed definitions — three things you need the moment the output influences a decision.
What stops it from confidently inventing a number?
It does not generate numbers. It generates a query, runs it against your governed data, and shows both. If the metric layer cannot express the question, it says so instead of approximating.
Where this lands hardest
Industries feeling this most.
Next step
Find out whether this is actually your highest-value fix.
Eleven questions, scored in your browser, with the arithmetic shown. It may well tell you that a different area matters more.
Start the assessment