What Large Companies Do With Their Data (And Why 50-100 Employee Companies Need the Same Thing)

Databricks recently published a case study about how companies like Corning, Volvo, and Cox Automotive automated their data processes. The numbers are impressive: 2,500 automated processes, 5 petabytes of data, hundreds of global users.

But what do these numbers have to do with an 80-person construction company or a 50-employee distributor?

More than you think. Because the problem these companies are solving is exactly the same as yours - just at a different scale.

The Real Problem: Reports Steal Time That Should Be Spent on Business

Corning struggled with "data silos" - separate parts of the company that didn't communicate with each other. Volvo needed real-time visibility into inventory. Cox Automotive battled "bottlenecks" in data processing.

Let's translate: Accounting has their data in Excel, sales in another, production in a third, and you spend Friday afternoon trying to figure out if Project X was actually profitable.

Sound familiar?

While Databricks talks about "predictive maintenance" and "real-time insights," the reality for most SMBs is much simpler and more frustrating:

• Wednesday, 4:00 PM: Client asks if you can take on a new project
• Wednesday, 4:15 PM: You start gathering team capacity data from 3 different Excel files
• Thursday morning: Still no clear answer
• Friday: Client went to your competitor

What Big Companies Did (And What You Can Do Too)

Volvo: Automated inventory monitoring for 200,000 new trucks per year and millions of spare parts. Result: 40% increased efficiency in data processing.

SMB version: You don't need to monitor millions of parts. But if you have 5-10 ongoing projects and need to know in real-time where you stand with materials, labor, and profitability - the principle is identical. Only the tools and costs are different.

Corning: Migrated from Apache Airflow to Databricks Workflows to manage 2,500 automated processes.

SMB version: You don't have 2,500 processes. But if your monthly report takes 3 days of manual work, you have a process that needs automation. At 3 days x 12 months x average salary, we're talking about €3,000-5,000 per year lost on copy-pasting between Excel files.

Why SMBs Fall Behind (And How That's Changing)

The Databricks article highlights a critical problem: companies need to move from "reactive problem-solving" to "proactive innovation."

In plain language: Instead of finding out you lost money on a project when it's too late, you should see in real-time if the project is staying within budget.

The problem isn't lack of solutions - Power BI, Tableau, even Apache solutions (open source) work perfectly. The problem is that:

1. Large consultancies don't look at companies under €10M revenue - you're too small for them
2. ERP vendors sell you €50,000-100,000 solutions - you're too big for Excel, too small for their budgets
3. Nobody tells you there's a middle ground

The Reality for Mid-Market Companies

When Volvo talks about "real-time inventory management," they're not talking about alien technology. They're talking about:

• Centralizing data from different sources (ERP, Excel, management systems)
• Automatic updates instead of manual
• Dashboards showing current status, not the situation from 2 weeks ago

The difference: Volvo pays for entire teams and enterprise solutions. You can get 80% of the benefits with 10% of the cost - if you choose the right tools and approach.

What "Automation" Means in Real-World Context

A concrete example from a recent Conresti project:

Before:

• Site manager sends Excel report Friday afternoon
• Project manager reconciles with procurement (2 more Excel files)
• Monday morning, director receives consolidated report
• If a problem appears, it's discovered 3-5 days late

After:

• Data is entered once (usually the data already exists in some system)
• Dashboard updates automatically
• Alerts when a project exceeds budget by >10%
• Director sees the situation in real-time from their phone

Cost: €8,000 implementation + €400/month maintenance (cheaper than a part-time employee doing reports)

ROI: On the first project you save from loss because you saw the problem in time, the investment pays for itself.

What You Can Do Now

Databricks sells solutions for tens or hundreds of thousands of euros. Normal - they work with Volvo and Corning.

You don't need Databricks. You need someone who:

1. Understands what large companies do (and why it works)
2. Can adapt the same principles to SMB scale
3. Uses accessible tools (Power BI, Apache solutions, Tableau) instead of enterprise platforms
4. Implements quickly (weeks, not months) because you don't have time to wait 6 months

The companies in the Databricks article went through the same transformation you need to go through. The difference is they have budgets of hundreds of thousands of euros and you need a €6,000-15,000 solution.

Good news: Technology has democratized. What cost €500,000 in 2015 now costs €15,000 if you know which tools to use and how to implement them efficiently.

Bottom Line

When Databricks writes about "revolutionizing manufacturing," they're right. But the revolution isn't just for billion-dollar companies.

The difference between you and Volvo isn't that they have more important data. It's that they realized time wasted on manual reports and decisions made on old data cost too much.

The question isn't "Do we need automation?" - the answer is always yes.

The right question is: "How much does it cost us each month to not automate?"

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Conresti Data Management Solutions - We transform Excel chaos into automated reports for Romanian SMBs in construction, manufacturing, and distribution.

Next step: Free Data Health Assessment - 2 hours, no obligations, find out exactly where you're losing time and money with manual processes.

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Last updated: November 3, 2025