Post-Merger Customer Data Consolidation for a National Energy Provider

Challenge

Following the acquisition of a major competitor’s private and business customer portfolio, a national energy provider faced the task of consolidating data and structures from two separate IT environments. Customer scoring systems that had been built for the acquired customer base needed to be carried over into the acquiring company’s environment. At the same time, the existing development cycles and staffing overhead for changes and new developments were high relative to the output delivered.

The core problem was one of data harmonization at scale: multiple heterogeneous source systems — including SAP, CRM, and various sales platforms — produced inconsistent customer metrics. Management reporting required a unified view, and the post-merger integration timeline left little room for lengthy implementation projects.

Approach

Alligator Company designed and implemented an automation-first approach centered on dbt and Data Vault, with Snowflake as the cloud data warehouse platform. The foundation was a purpose-built dbt framework using automateDV for harmonized data integration across all source systems. This enabled model-driven code generation for Data Vault structures, reducing manual development effort substantially.

Building on this framework, the team systematically integrated the acquired company’s source systems. Customer metrics from the legacy environment were harmonized with the existing metrics, creating a unified data foundation across both customer bases. To accelerate delivery of key customer metrics for reporting, Alligator Company implemented an access layer directly on the Raw Vault — without waiting for a fully built-out Business Vault.

In parallel, the team established an automated deployment and test framework that provided each developer with an isolated schema containing production-like test data. This decoupled development on dependent objects and shortened feedback cycles. Scheduling was handled through an Airflow framework, while CI/CD was managed via GitHub Actions. Standardized templates and developer guidelines ensured a high degree of automation through dbt, maintaining consistency across the growing codebase.

Outcome

Unified customer metrics across all source systems now provide a 360-degree customer view for marketing and sales, the primary business objective of the post-merger integration. Rating and evaluation metrics from the acquired portfolio were carried over successfully, preserving continuity for customer relationship management.

The modular dbt-based framework provides a repeatable pattern for onboarding additional source systems without architectural changes. Automation through dbt, automateDV, and the standardized deployment framework shortened development cycles and lowered staffing requirements for ongoing changes.