Confused.com uses Microsoft Azure to halve analytics lead times

“With a business like ours, customers are our focus,” says Stephen Dukes, CEO at Confused.com. “The comparison market is very competitive … old tools and old approaches need to be updated.” 

A competitive marketplace 

Confused.com is the longest running comparison service in the UK. It’s been helping consumers to navigate the confusing world of finance products for 20 years. In that time, it has grown from a team of 10 to a team of 300, now serving 15 million customers.

Making sense of data is fundamental to Confused.com, its customer proposition, its communications, the development of new products and services, its efficient operations and competitive advantage. Amongst other aspects, it uses data to create algorithms that personalise the customer experience. 

Matthew Bolton, Head of IX at Confused.com, explains, “Confused.com uses insights found in the data it acquires to deliver additional value to its customers… the traditional approach to infrastructure was hampering this ambition. Confused.com turned to the Microsoft cloud to address this challenge.” 

Using data to benefit customers 

Choosing Microsoft Azure as its data and business platform opened new opportunities for Confused.com to use the data it holds to benefit the business and its customers, including with the use of native AI tools.

One area where Azure AI has enabled the team to increase profitability in is marketing. For example, explains Sayantika Mukherjee, Head of Performance at Confused.com, “It’s crucial that we land the right communications as and when they’re needed and not incessantly. Building out feature sets using our sales data on Microsoft Azure to rapidly create ROI models meant we were able to address this head on, making an improvement on marketing spend of ten percent.” 

Moving its data and insights operations to the Azure cloud has also enabled Confused.com to integrate with new B2B channels and marketplaces to offer “comparison as a service”. Matthew Bolton adds, “We’ve been able to reach a wider customer base and make our services open to more of the UK population.” 

Doing more with less 

“Our overall analytics lead time has been reduced by 50 percent,” summarises Sayantika Mukherjee. “It shows just how big a development this is, particularly at a time when a lot of us are looking at providing efficiencies.” 

In this way, Confused.com is using the power of Microsoft Azure to do more with less – and, ultimately, help its customers to do more with less too.  

Stephen Dukes concludes, “Our plan is to help more people to make better decisions and we’re excited to continue to work with Microsoft over the next few years to achieve this.”