Case Study
Analytics Platform Migration for a High-Growth Skincare DTC Company
From Tableau to Hex
Overview
DFI partnered with a high-growth direct-to-consumer skincare brand to modernize its analytics platform as the business scaled. While the company operates in ecommerce, its data environment shares many of the same expectations found in healthcare: data security, accuracy, traceability, and clear documentation around how metrics are produced.
The engagement focused on improving dashboard performance, strengthening reporting accuracy, and establishing durable metric definitions that leadership could rely on as the organization grew.
Business Challenge
Rapid growth introduced complexity across marketing, revenue, and customer reporting:
- Dashboards were slow to load and difficult to use live in executive reviews
- Reporting accuracy required manual validation and follow-up explanations
- Metric definitions differed across teams, leading to inconsistent interpretations
For a skincare brand operating close to regulated data workflows, these issues increased both operational friction and risk. Leadership needed analytics that could stand up to scrutiny similar to what is expected in mature healthcare data analytics environments.
DFI Approach
DFI led a structured migration from Tableau to Hex, applying the same rigor commonly used in healthcare data analytics consulting engagements — without adding unnecessary process or overhead.
Performance Optimization
Dashboards were redesigned to eliminate redundant queries and improve execution efficiency. Hex’s notebook-based model allowed transformations and calculations to be clearly defined and reused.
Outcome:
Average dashboard load times were reduced by 90%, enabling dashboards to be used live in leadership, marketing, and operating meetings.
Reporting Accuracy and Auditability
All core metrics were rebuilt with explicit, inspectable logic. Stakeholders could trace how results were produced, aligning with best practices typically required in healthcare data analytics work.
Outcome:
Improved confidence in reported numbers, with auditability replacing manual reconciliation.
Metric Documentation and Governance
Metric definitions and assumptions were embedded directly alongside the logic that produced them. Documentation stayed current by design—an approach essential in scalable healthcare data analytics programs.
Outcome:
A consistent, shared understanding of KPIs across finance, growth, and analytics teams.
Results
Following the migration, the company achieved:
- 90% reduction in average dashboard load times
- More accurate, explainable reporting supported by transparent logic
- Centralized metric documentation aligned with healthcare-grade analytics expectations
- Increased executive adoption of dashboards for decision-making
Analytics moved from being a reporting bottleneck to a trusted operational asset.
Conclusion
For high-growth DTC companies operating near regulated data domains, analytics must deliver both speed and discipline. This engagement shows how principles drawn from healthcare data analytics—clarity, auditability, and performance—can materially improve how teams use data.
By migrating from Tableau to Hex, DFI helped this skincare brand establish an analytics foundation built for scale, trust, and long-term decision-making.