Smooth, company-wide adoption within weeks

Richard Ristic, Head of Data at CDON, leads the company’s data platform and in-house team. His team’s mission is to build a scalable data foundation that empowers the entire organization to make faster, smarter decisions.

We spoke with Richard and his team members, Anabel and Robin, about the journey.

Challenges Too much maintenance, too little progress

Before Steep, CDON relied on Tableau as its BI tool. The company data lacked central governance, and the data team spent most of its time building and maintaining dashboards. Most business users had Viewer licenses, so the access to exploring data was minimal.

For a small team with big ambitions, that simply didn’t scale.

Main challenges:

• Lack of access: There was a clear appetite for insights across the business, but limited access to exploring data required the data team’s attention in even the simplest requests.
• Business distrust: Without centralized governance, the same KPI could differ across dashboards, damaging the overall trust in data.
• Stuck in maintenance mode: Strategic work was postponed because the data team’s time went into building and updating dashboards, adding breakdowns, and explaining why numbers didn’t match. Very little time was spent on core work: modeling, warehouse improvement, quality, performance, and long-term strategy.

Solution A fast and intuitive experience

The team wanted a single source of truth that would reduce friction between the business and data, and create a workflow where employees could explore KPIs independently, without compromising trust or usability.

When evaluating alternatives, two criteria mattered most:

• Fast, low-lift implementation: A time-efficient conversion of core models into usable metrics.
• An intuitive UX for end users: Ease-of-use for business teams and adoption that shouldn’t depend on training, enablement, or constant support from the data team.

Steep stood out to CDON immediately. The intuitive design made it easy for business teams to explore data, and getting metrics set up in Steep was quick and seamless.

Implementation Rapid company-wide adoption

Steep was rolled out to all teams in just two weeks. A quick proof of concept was followed by a two-week exploration period, where business teams were given access and encouraged to test, build, and experiment in Steep. A demo session and a few pre-built reports were set up as a starting point, and from there, adoption spread organically. Super-users emerged early, helping other team members get started and accelerating usage across the organization.

Day 1

A proof of concept with core metrics and breakdowns was prepared, giving leadership a clear vision of the new workflow.

Day 2–3

More metrics and dimensions were added to ensure relevant data was included across teams.

Week 1–2

The majority of the company got access to Steep, and teams were encouraged to test, build, and experiment independently.

After this, Steep was officially rolled out to all business users as the new BI tool.

CDON also saw clear signs of adoption early on. For example, when a product category became a strategic focus, a business user independently built a report in Steep to analyze brands and merchants to identify gaps in the assortment. It showed that teams were proactively exploring data and driving initiatives forward.

Impact Data team – from helpdesk to enablers

Steep fundamentally changed the CDON data team's daily work. By centralizing metrics and eliminating fragmented logic, the team moved from maintaining dashboards and answering ad-hoc questions to building a scalable data foundation for the entire company.

• Time for core work: Without the endless ad-hoc work, the team has the capacity to work on high-impact tasks, warehouse refactoring, strengthening data quality, optimizing performance, as well as skill development and learning.
• Centralized, scalable logic: Because metrics are defined centrally, the team naturally prioritizes data modeling in the warehouse. In Steep, updates are made once and applied globally, creating consistency, high data quality, and a scalable foundation.
• Stronger influence: The data team is involved earlier in conversations, helping define what to measure, why it matters, and how it should be structured. This has elevated the team’s role from service provider to strategic enabler.

Insight-driven thinking across the business

Business users who rarely engaged with dashboards began exploring data independently. Patterns – like weekly seasonality in conversion rates – surfaced naturally because they were easy to spot.

Simple, consistent charts and transparent logic make data easy to understand and trust, shifting conversations from questioning dashboards to discussing insights.

• Increased engagement: When the data access barrier dropped, business teams and management started exploring metrics, building reports, and finding answers on their own - even live in meetings - without requesting help.
• Deeper conversations: Discussions shifted from asking basic questions about the numbers and if they’re correct, to interpreting data and the correlation between metrics. Teams now explore context themselves: a shift from reactive to insight-driven thinking.
• Decision speed: Business users can explore metrics directly in Steep and make confident decisions without involving the data team. Because definitions and filters are transparent, there’s no need to question how numbers are calculated.
• Growing demand: Since the rollout, more teams are asking to bring additional metrics into Steep – a clear signal that Steep has become central for daily decision-making.

With a centrally governed, metrics-first setup in place, CDON now operates with greater speed, clarity, and trust in its data.

Implementing Steep was quick, adoption was smooth, and didn’t require heavy onboarding or long training. The intuitive interface, centralized metrics, and low implementation effort meant teams could start exploring and seeing value immediately.

While the transformation has already delivered results, the journey doesn’t stop here. CDON continues to improve its data foundation and support the organization with better data. The team now has the foundation needed to continue improving and scaling their analytics work.

Ready to switch to the metrics-first approach with Steep? Book a demo with sales and see how Steep can empower your team.