Sensefuel: Using Google Cloud to boost ecommerce
About Sensefuel
Founded in 2017, Sensefuel is a strategic partner for retail and ecommerce players looking to maximize their ecommerce sales performance, offering its customers an exceptional, highly personalized search experience. The company has around 50 employees located between its headquarters in Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France, and its office in Anvers, Belgium, which opened in 2021 to serve the northern European market.
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Padok
Digital services company Padok is a Google Cloud partner that specializes in cloud infrastructures and DevOps.
Sensefuel migrated its platform to Google Cloud in order to strengthen its resilience and scalability, with a modern, reliable infrastructure capable of supporting the company's international growth.
Google Cloud results
- Greater resilience with managed services and the reliability of Google Cloud
- Scalability facilitated by Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) automation
- Cost optimization by provisioning resources according to actual needs
Accelerated innovation by dedicating fewer resources to operational maintenance
Founded in 2017, French start-up Sensefuel seeks to optimize its customers' online sales using innovative technology designed to personalize search results based on individual customers' tastes and preferences. Using its one2one sales engine, Sensefuel analyzes the meaning and context behind every single search in real time, as well as the behavior and purchasing history of each customer, to provide personalized and relevant results, substantially increasing customer conversion and loyalty rates as a result. In 2022, for the second year running, the company announced it had achieved a spectacular growth rate of 100%, a testament to the solution's increasing success, which Stéphane Vendramini, founder of Sensefuel, hopes will spread across the rest of Europe. "We have big ambitions to expand globally, and so to welcome even more customers, we need to be able to count on a resilient infrastructure that can be easily scaled up, which is why we chose Google Cloud."
"We have big ambitions to expand internationally, and so to welcome even more customers, we need to be able to count on a resilient infrastructure that can be easily scaled up, which is why we chose Google Cloud."
—Stéphane Vendramini, founder of SensefuelStrengthening the service's reliability by paying the right price
Available in Software as a Service (SaaS) mode, Sensefuel's platform was hosted by a service provider up until 2021, when the company migrated to Google Cloud. "Before we migrated, we were already using Google Cloud, but solely for failover purposes," explains Stéphane Vendramini. "Simply put, in theory we would never have had to use Google Cloud if our provider had been up to the task. But they weren't, and so when we had to switch over to our backup solution to keep our services running, we decided to stay with Google Cloud."
After much deliberation, rather than opting for a multi-cloud solution, Sensefuel decided on the simplicity of a single infrastructure. Sure enough, as soon as the company started running its platform on Google Cloud, Sensefuel noticed a real change in its reliability. "Unstable virtual machines, network outages, response times that did not match the resources allocated. We went through it all with our old service provider," explains Sensefuel's founder. "All of these issues cost us dearly, especially in terms of monopolizing our internal resources, which were dedicated to resolving incidents rather than developing our solution's added value. Not to mention the stress caused by the fear of a potential malfunction, which would likely impact the service quality offered to our customers and, by extension, our company's image and ability to grow."
Zeroing in on the company's added value by automating scalability
Today, Sensefuel has around 100 customers, primarily based in France. Nevertheless, the company plans to extend its presence throughout Europe as early as this year. Thanks to the reliability of its infrastructure, the company also capitalized on the technology and services offered by Google Cloud to overhaul its platform's technical design and optimize its operation with a view to boosting agility and facilitating scalability.
This growth is partly due to GKE, with the implementation of Kubernetes entirely managed by Google Cloud. "We already had several Kubernetes clusters before the migration, but we had to manage them internally since managed services weren't available from our old provider, which was exceedingly time-consuming. Since moving over to Google Cloud, we've started migrating all of our services to GKE so we can take full advantage of a managed solution that doesn't needlessly tie up our internal resources, as maintaining the Kubernetes platform isn't where our added value lies," explains Stéphane Vendramini.
At the same time, the company also seized the opportunity to boost its agility by streamlining and automating its scalability processes. The operation of Sensefuel's platform relies on the anonymous monitoring of visitors' clicks, enabling the company to recognize peaks in traffic during the day and troughs at night. To optimize its costs while still providing its customers with the best service possible, the company fully automated resource provisioning based on actual real-time needs. "And more globally, we've revamped our scalability by leveraging the managed services and automations offered by Google Cloud so we can be smarter in the way we use resources," adds Stéphane Vendramini.
"Since moving over to Google Cloud, we've started migrating all of our services to GKE so that we can take full advantage of a managed solution that doesn't needlessly tie up our internal resources, as maintaining the Kubernetes platform isn't where our added value lies."
—Stéphane Vendramini, founder of SensefuelUtilizing managed services to gain a competitive edge
Sensefuel's complex and highly sophisticated platform draws on internally developed AI algorithms to offer customers smooth and memorable search experiences. These algorithms are one of the platform's major advantages, and the company intends to continue training and enhancing them to stay ahead of its competitors. Once again, the "automated flexibility" afforded by Google Cloud considerably simplifies operations. "We've completely redesigned the way we train our AIs by fully exploiting the potential GKE has to offer. In other words, Google Cloud's managed services and automations have allowed us to adapt our platform in line with our growth objectives, meaning we're now able to welcome an infinite number of new customers, continually providing them with the best-quality service," explains Stéphane Vendramini.
Furthermore, the company is continuing to optimize its infrastructure by rolling out a FinOps approach, teaming up with service provider Padok to help Sensefuel get the most out of Google Cloud and its technology.
"Our infrastructure has grown threefold, if not fourfold, since we first founded the company. Without Google Cloud, we would probably have had to recruit three extra people just to maintain the infrastructure. Essentially, as well as providing resilience and scalability, Google Cloud has also enabled us to strategically reallocate our resources, indirectly helping to accelerate innovation and develop new services as a result. When you're operating in a market as competitive as ours, being able to gear employees towards the future rather than wasting time on operational maintenance is a serious advantage," concludes Sensefuel's founder.
"As well as providing resilience and scalability, Google Cloud has also enabled us to strategically reallocate our resources, indirectly helping to accelerate innovation and develop new services as a result. When you're operating in a market as competitive as ours, being able to gear employees towards the future rather than wasting time on operational maintenance is a serious advantage."
—Stéphane Vendramini, founder of SensefuelTell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Sensefuel
Founded in 2017, Sensefuel is a strategic partner for retail and ecommerce players looking to maximize their ecommerce sales performance, offering its customers an exceptional, highly personalized search experience. The company has around 50 employees located between its headquarters in Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France, and its office in Anvers, Belgium, which opened in 2021 to serve the northern European market.
About Padok
Digital services company Padok is a Google Cloud partner that specializes in cloud infrastructures and DevOps.