Transforming Fragmented Data into a Competitive Advantage for Afianza

Growth through acquisitions is a common strategy in the advisory and financial services sectors. However, each integration adds not only clients and revenue, but also fragmented systems, processes, and data that hinder operations and limit scaling potential.

Afianza was living this reality. A company in accelerated expansion that, with each acquisition, moved further away from having a unified vision. Multiple legacy ERPs, scattered spreadsheets, and unstandardized processes threatened to turn growth into a burden.

We built the Data Platform from scratch, an ecosystem based on microservices that centralizes information, eliminates manual processes, and lays the foundation for Afianza to operate as a data-driven organization.

Growing Without Control: When Data Becomes the Problem

99% of growing companies share one obstacle: critical information is scattered, difficult to access, and unreliable. For Afianza, this problem multiplied with each acquisition.

Afianza continuously integrated new businesses and portfolios. Each integration brought commercial value, but also new legacy ERPs (SAGE, A3, GEYCE), unique processes, and operational management based on spreadsheets scattered across SharePoint or Drive. Without version control, without traceability, and with high risk of errors.

The result: an organization operating blindly, without a global vision or consolidated data for strategic decisions.

The Obstacles Preventing Scaling

Beyond the technical complexity inherent in legacy systems, Afianza faced several critical challenges:

1. Compromised data quality: Poorly formatted, duplicated, or incorrect information. Without validations, errors accumulated and propagated between systems.
2. Lack of traceability: With multiple people editing sheets simultaneously, it was impossible to know who modified what, when, and why.
3. Growing complexity: Each integration exponentially increased the difficulty of consolidating data. Stabilization became an almost impossible task.
4. Previous failed attempts: Several consulting firms had failed. The only result was an unmanageable PowerBI that required exclusive dedication without guaranteeing updates. This generated deep distrust toward technology.
5. Absence of technical capacity: They had no dedicated development team or clear methodologies for managing technology projects, which limited any attempt to build sustainable solutions.

Without addressing these problems, Afianza faced a clear limit. Without data centralization, it was impossible to have global and normalized KPIs that would allow them to truly understand the business. Each new integration would be more complex, costly, and error-prone. Margins would fall and the possibilities of scaling profitably would disappear.

Building the Technological Core from Scratch

Faced with complexity, we made a decision: not to adapt existing solutions, but to build the Data Platform from scratch that would solve problems at their root and prepare Afianza for its future.

The mission was to connect, centralize, and normalize information from multiple heterogeneous sources, guaranteeing structured, reliable, and real-time updated data.

Event-Driven Microservices Architecture

We opted for microservices communicated through asynchronous events, providing flexibility (each service evolves independently), scalability (specific components scale according to demand), and resilience (if one service fails, the rest operate normally). Errors are managed through dedicated queues (DLQ), guaranteeing complete traceability.

The technology stack was built with:

• TypeScript and NestJS: mature framework with dependency injection, modularity, and strict typing
• RabbitMQ: asynchronous messaging decoupling components
• PostgreSQL: open source relational database
• Kubernetes: high availability, horizontal scalability, and CI/CD with GitHub Actions

Complex Integrations: Connecting the Incompatible

One of the biggest challenges was integrating legacy systems and modern platforms. The ERPs (SAGE, A3, GEYCE) were old, with complex architectures and inconsistent data. We delved deep into the business to understand how they were used and extract correct information. We also integrated corporate tools (Jira, HubSpot, OpenHR, Azure AD, SharePoint) and government systems (AEAT).

Each integration was implemented through an independent module that acts as an adapter, normalizing data from each source and applying quality validations and error management.

Unlike traditional solutions that extract periodic “snapshots,” the Data Platform operates continuously, guaranteeing always up-to-date information.

Prepared for the Future

We avoided vendor lock-in from the start. PostgreSQL, RabbitMQ, and Kubernetes (all open source) ensure portability and facilitate evolution toward their own data warehouse. The platform also enables future digital products that consume this data, consolidating Afianza’s digital transformation.

Tangible Value from Day One

Building the platform meant facing complex technical challenges that required technological expertise and deep business understanding.

Technical Challenges Overcome

1. Integration with legacy ERPs: The systems were not only old and poorly documented, but data had been entered inconsistently. We analyzed the business in depth, identified how each ERP structured information, and built dedicated microservices capable of extracting, normalizing, and validating data with completely different logics.
2. Real-time platform: Continuous operation through event-driven architecture, with constant synchronization, automatic updates, and the ability to react in real-time to changes.
3. Scalable architecture: Modular design that allows for agile deployment of functionalities, scaling components according to demand, and facilitating maintenance without interruptions.
4. Implementation of methodologies from scratch: We established agile practices, CI/CD, and trained a multidisciplinary team capable of continuously evolving the product.

Applied Innovations

1. Data quality modules: Each microservice incorporates its own validation, detecting inconsistencies structurally. Problems are managed through DLQ with complete traceability.
2. Architecture prepared for data warehouse: Although PowerBI acts as the current exploitation layer, the architecture naturally evolves toward its own data warehouse without rewriting the system.
3. Open source and portability: Open source technologies ensure that Afianza has total control over its infrastructure and can migrate or scale it according to future needs.

First Steps Toward a Data-Driven Organization

Although the project is in the consolidation and functional expansion phase, the results obtained so far are already radically transforming Afianza’s operations.

Centralization and Unified Access

All information was consolidated into a single structured database, eliminating dispersion across ERPs and spreadsheets. For the first time, Afianza has a unified and reliable vision, with agile access to key data. Queries that previously required reviewing multiple systems are now resolved in seconds.

Data Quality Control

The process revealed critical problems: poorly formatted, duplicated, or incorrect data. Thanks to automated validations, these problems are detected structurally, corrected systematically, and prevented at the source.

Multiplied Operational Efficiency

Teams went from manually consulting multiple systems to accessing consolidated information, generating significant time savings (~70%), greater operational efficiency, and drastic reduction in manual errors.

Integration with Existing Ecosystem

The platform connected with Jira, HubSpot, PowerBI, and other systems, optimizing processes through automation and enabling analytical capabilities with consolidated data. This prepares the evolution toward their own data warehouse with advanced analytics.

Restored Trust in Technology

Early users experience tangible improvements, especially relevant considering previous failures. The restoration of trust enables future innovations and ensures organizational commitment to digital transformation.

Infrastructure as Competitive Advantage

The scalable architecture allows for agile integration of new businesses without compromising quality or increasing complexity. Each acquisition can be quickly connected through new dedicated microservices, immediately benefit from existing capabilities, and join the ecosystem without rewriting systems. This transforms M&A growth from a technical challenge into a competitive advantage, allowing for profitable and sustainable scaling.

Enabler of Future Innovation

The platform lays the foundation for Afianza to build its data warehouse, develop new digital products that consume this centralized data (such as management portals or analytical tools), and evolve toward a fully data-driven model with predictive capabilities.

Thanks to Orbitant’s work, we now have a comprehensive and reliable view of all our client and operations data, allowing us to analyze information from multiple angles and improve the efficiency of our organization. The most valuable part has been working with a consolidated team: their shared experience and way of working have strengthened our communication, built trust, and increased our agility in decision-making.

ANA MARÍA García sánchEZ
Director of Digital Transformation at Afianza

Technology Used

• TypeScript – Type safety
• NestJS – Framework for microservices
• MikroORM – ORM
• RabbitMQ – Asynchronous messaging
• Prometheus, Loki, Grafana – Monitoring
• Node.js – Runtime
• PostgreSQL – Database
• Kubernetes – Infrastructure