Nowcast Supports FineToday in Building a Next-Generation Data Analytics Platform

Nowcast, Inc. (Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director and CEO: Hitoshi Tsujinaka; hereinafter "Nowcast"), a member of the Finatext Group which provides next-generation financial infrastructure to realize embedded finance, has supported FineToday Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director, President and CEO: Tetsuro Komori; hereinafter "FineToday") in building a next-generation data analytics platform using Snowflake and dbt to accelerate company-wide data-driven management.
Through this support, FineToday has established an environment where core data, such as supply chain and financial accounting data, can be integrated, managed, and utilized.

■ Background

FineToday is a personal care company that manages brands such as "TSUBAKI," "SENKA," and "uno." As the company promoted the use of data to optimize its entire value chain from production to sales, it faced the following challenges:

• Black-boxed and Siloed Data Pipelines

In the previous data infrastructure, complex business logic was hard-coded into programs, and data structures were not optimized for specific analytical dimensions. This required significant man-hours for data reuse, quality control, and modifications, hindering rapid data utilization.

• Lack of Data Governance

There was a lack of catalog functions to manage the location and definition of data, making it difficult for developers and users to access necessary information. Additionally, there was a need to strengthen controls over permission management and resource management between production and development environments.

• Need for Advanced Data Utilization

The previous infrastructure made it difficult to perform data analysis based on integrated and controlled metrics across the group and global operations. This hindered rapid and flexible decision-making and limited the cross-functional use of data, making it difficult to implement advanced analytics using AI models.

■ Overview of Support

Nowcast provided end-to-end support, ranging from architectural design and implementation to the establishment of operational rules and skill transfer to internal engineers.

1. Rebuilding Dimensional Models with Snowflake & dbt

By adopting Snowflake for the Data Warehouse (DWH) and dbt for data transformation, complex supply chain and financial data were restructured into dimensional models organized by business axes such as "Product," "Customer," and "Time." This visualized complex processing logic based on SQL, creating an environment where anyone can handle data with consistent definitions.

2. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) with Terraform and Enhanced Governance

AWS and Snowflake infrastructure configurations were codified using Terraform (IaC). This automated environment construction, prevented configuration errors, and enabled strict permission management and audit log tracking, establishing an enterprise-level governance framework.

3. Promoting AI Data Utilization through a Semantic Layer

To facilitate intuitive data search using natural language and the use of Generative AI (such as Snowflake Cortex Analyst), Nowcast supported the development of a semantic layer. This allows for integrated management of analytical axes and business metadata, enabling business users to easily and accurately retrieve necessary data via AI.

■ Comment from Mr. Hidehiko Komuro, IT Division, FineToday Co., Ltd.

Previously, the specifications of our data infrastructure were a black box, requiring significant time and cost for modifications and the ingestion of new data. With Nowcast's support, we introduced modern technologies like dbt and Terraform, transforming it into a highly transparent platform that we can manage and operate ourselves. Moving forward, we will leverage this platform to accelerate business-linked data utilization.

■ Future Outlook

FineToday will continue to promote the sophistication of its data utilization, with this newly built platform at its core. Nowcast will continue to strongly support FineToday's DX (Digital Transformation) through both Generative AI and data infrastructure.

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