Scaling a business is no small feat, and Velto is a testament to that. Based in Northern Europe, Velto is a fast-scaling consumer electronics company creating buzz across households and offices alike. Specializing in smart thermostats, portable air purifiers, and remote control hubs, Velto’s products are sold through Shopify, Amazon, physical retail stores, and B2B channels.
With teams spread across Sales, Operations, Marketing, Finance, and Support, and systems like Shopify, Exact, HubSpot, and a maze of spreadsheets and dashboards, Velto seems like a well-oiled machine. But beneath the surface, the everyday challenges of managing rapid growth start to emerge.
Data is at the heart of Velto’s operations, but as with many scaling businesses, it’s not always working as well as it could. Here’s a peek at Velto’s challenges and how they mirror the realities of countless companies striving for clarity, trust, and speed.
When Growth Meets Messy Data
For Velto, life moves fast, but sometimes their data can’t quite keep up. And while it’s not a flashy technical breakdown or dramatic “system failure,” these small, frustrating gaps come with real costs.
Hypothetical? Not Really.
Here are some snippets of what the Velto team faces on any given day.
A retail buyer is eager to reorder Velto’s bestseller. The issue? The inventory data on the dashboard is three weeks aged. Running low on stock and slow to update, a golden sales opportunity flutters by.
The Marketing team proudly presents last month’s campaign results. But just as they’re popping the champagne, Sales calls out data discrepancies. Different internal dashboards (and definitions) mean the teams aren’t speaking the same language.
A big decision is made to ramp up production for a new product variant. Unfortunately, the demand forecast didn’t account for an uptick in returns. Now? Inventory surplus and misplaced resources.
Finance is on yet another frantic three-day mission. Revenue figures from Operations don’t match Marketing’s reports. Different teams use slightly different calculations, leading to endless reconciliation attempts.
The team relies on a dashboard for live insights, but weeks later they realize a back-end formula was changed without anyone being informed. The result? Weeks of decisions based on flawed insights.
As month-end approaches, financial consolidation grinds to a halt. The sole keeper of the Excel sheets that tie everything together is on unexpected sick leave, leaving the team scrambling to locate files, interpret formulas, and piece together the numbers. The result? Missed deadlines, mounting frustration, and delays in closing the month.
Sound familiar? These scenarios may appear isolated, but they stem from a bigger challenge. Misaligned, incomplete, or inconsistent data isn’t just a road bump; it chips away at trust, teamwork, and momentum. And in rapidly scaling companies like Velto, friction like this matters.
Why These Moments Feel Familiar
Here’s the thing about Velto’s story (and what makes it interesting): these aren’t mistakes. They’re completely normal growing pains. When a business grows and stretches across departments, systems, and platforms, data gets complicated.
The problem isn’t just about having “bad data” or missing a fancy tool. It’s about alignment. When definitions aren’t shared, ownership isn’t clear, and quality isn’t prioritized, data becomes a liability instead of an asset.
Meet Velto, Our Recurring Character
Velto is more than just a small European brand with a knack for sleek electronics. For us, Velto represents the very real challenges scaling businesses face as their data landscape grows tangled.
Going forward, Velto will be a recurring character in our discussions about aligning, modeling, and refining data practices for smarter decisions and smoother operations.
We don’t see Velto as a problem to be fixed. Instead, Velto gives us a relatable point of learning. It’s about exploring what happens when teams start sharing definitions, prioritize governance, and get serious about data quality and accessibility.
Think of Velto as a lens through which we can dig deeper into making data work better—not just bigger.
Why This Matters to You
If you’ve read this far, Velto’s story might strike a chord. Maybe these moments have happened in your own business. Maybe you’ve felt the frustration of disconnected systems or the scramble caused by outdated data.
But here’s the takeaway—we don’t solve these challenges overnight. It’s not about throwing money at shiny platforms or firing off mandates. Improvement comes step by step, with a commitment to building alignment, ownership, and trust.
Velto will be our guide for exploring these steps, shedding light on the real potential of well-handled data.
Stay tuned as we unpack key topics like shared data definitions, building better dashboards, creating clear communication workflows, and more.
Your business isn’t just about data. It’s about trust, scale, and speed. And when data supports those goals instead of getting in the way? That’s when transformation happens.