“We needed a platform that we in the analytics department could own, and own intelligibly. Domo checked all of those boxes for us.”
Julie Wright
Head of Analytics at KOKO Networks
KOKO is Africa’s leading consumer climate-tech platform, driving the replacement of deforestation-based charcoal at scale via renewable fuel networks.
Industry
High Tech
Departments using Domo
CEO/C-Suite, Operations, Other, Sales
Company Size
1,500+ employees
Challenge:
Optimize ‘last mile distribution’ of renewable fuel across target cities, during a period of rapid growth in consumer demand.
Solution:
Creating a single source of truth for the visualization of real-time data, for all employees to utilize.
Impact:
A new level of efficiency and data-driven decision-making for strategically managing rapid growth, driven by the company’s leadership team.
Domo powers insights across KOKO’s networks.
KOKO is scaling a proprietary technology platform that is a critical piece of the environmental infrastructure required to protect Africa’s forests, which are being destroyed by the $30 billion charcoal cooking fuel industry. KOKO’s hardware, software, and operating platform enables the replacement of charcoal, at scale, with sustainable bioethanol cooking fuel – starting in urban Kenya. Over half a million households buy clean fuel daily via a network of 1,300+ KOKO Fuel ATMs, refilled by Smart MicroTankers. The customer experience is modern, clean, ultra-safe and undercuts charcoal pricing by 40%.
KOKO has seen rapid growth since it launched across Nairobi in Q4 2019, with a 1,500-strong team between Kenya and India (as of August 2022). To support this growth in team, operational scale and customer base, KOKO is implementing an intuitive, data-based strategy built on real time business intelligence.
Previously, KOKO used standard data visualization software to integrate its three, disparate databases. However, the volume of data led to challenges around dashboard speed and performance in the regions it was being used. When the decision was made to build out a more customized solution, KOKO was seeking three important elements.
KOKO’s first consideration was ease of use and navigation, according to their Head of Analytics, Julie Wright.
“We needed something that had a quick learning curve and was easy to use, because our team is growing quickly. It had to be easy to use from the analytics standpoint, getting new people up-to-date on how to build dashboards and ETL pipelines. We needed them to be able to get in and have it be intuitive in how to navigate the dashboards.”
The second consideration was practicality at an affordable cost, Wright highlighted, “on the engineering side, we had a lot of recent hires at the time, or were filling key roles as we grew as a company. We needed a platform that we in the analytics department could own, and own intelligibly. Domo checked all of those boxes for us.”
KOKO brought in Domo to allow its team to manage the last mile distribution of renewable fuel across its Networks. Using sensors to inform the Domo dashboards, the fuel is tracked along the entire operations process, from every depot station and ‘Micro Tanker’ used, before arriving at the extensive network of KOKO Point ‘Fuel ATMs’. Similarly, delivery of cookers and canisters from KOKO’s warehouses can be tracked more efficiently, along with better visibility around customer metrics such as fuel purchases.
This improved visibility of data gives KOKO a new level of efficiency. The management team has oversight of high-level dashboards to monitor overall sales performance, growth figures, and forecasts. In support, team members can drill into the dashboards to extract the data and perform their own analytics. Lastly, customer sales teams automatically receive data every hour to show where live stock levels in the field. The overarching goal for this is to democratise the business to ensure end data is accessible for everyone, independently.
Thanks to Domo’s managed services team, KOKO was able to implement its offering within a short timeframe.
Wright highlights, “the rollout of Domo across the business was a six-month process. When first approaching providers, I was hearing a timeline of about one year would be likely, so the smooth process of ETL building was good. In addition, the people at Domo are really responsive when we have questions or need additional help. So that’s been huge. I haven’t noticed that with other tools that I’ve used, visualization tools, that the people at the company are as responsive and helpful as Domo.”
Through Domo’s intuitive UI, KOKO’s goal of data democratisation is now coming to life.
“We’re undertaking a process of defining our key KPIs within Domo, so it can be our single source of truth for reporting. Amongst our leadership team, we’re looking for everyone to be using the same data to drive decision making,” Wright said.
Domo has already supported KOKO in launching three new networks in Kenya, which will be followed by further expansion in East Africa from 2023.