"While our competitors rely on much larger teams to handle the same workload, ZenRows allows us to automate our scraping process, letting us achieve more with fewer resources and stay competitive."
The Challenge: Anti-Bot Bottlenecks Threatening Growth
The customer, a Canadian fintech startup specializing in B2B risk assessment, faced increasing pressure to deliver due diligence reports faster to compete with larger players. As manual copy-pasting from multiple sources was now insufficient, they attempted to automate data collection through web scraping. However, frequent anti-bot blocks wasted engineering time and resources, making this approach inefficient.
Switching to web scraping for data collection didn't yield immediate results for the company. The initial service they used was frequently blocked and couldn’t reliably keep up with websites’ evolving security measures.
The company faced abrupt scraping failures, preventing them from collecting the volume of data necessary to support their expanding operations.
As highlighted by Kamal, "We were using a form guide to copy-paste information into the database manually. We then switched to web scraping to automate this task, but we also got blocked a lot. This was a new threat to our business, and we had to find a lasting solution."
The fintech startup faced the following technical and business challenges:
- Manual Processes were slow and inefficient: The team spent significant time copy-pasting information from corporate registries and business databases. This manual approach limited their ability to scale report production as demand increased.
- Anti-bot systems blocked initial scraping attempts: Even when they made efforts to automate data collection through web scraping, their scraper was regularly blocked by advanced website protections like Cloudflare. These anti-bot measures led to failed scraping requests, wasted engineering time, and broken data pipelines. It became difficult to consistently gather the information needed for audit reports.
- Inconsistent data formats: Information from different regions came in varying formats, requiring extra manual effort to standardize and integrate data for analysis and reporting.
- Limited scalability: The company was unable to expand operations beyond the constraints of manual processing, which restricted their ability to take on more clients and larger projects.
- Higher operational costs: The team's profitability decreased due to increased labor costs from human-intensive workflows. This further reduced overall efficiency and profitability.
- Slower turnaround times: Manual processes resulted in longer report delivery times compared to competitors with larger workforces or those leveraging automation. This potentially affected clients' satisfaction.
- Increased risk of errors: The potential for mistakes in financial risk assessments presented reputational and compliance risks and undermined client trust.
The Solution: From Copy-Paste Bottleneck to 15,000 Monthly Reports: The ZenRows Transformation
The company's shift from manual data collection to automation was a turning point in their ability to scale report production and expand their client base. After their initial scraping solution failed to overcome advanced anti-bot protections, the team benchmarked several services before selecting ZenRows for its robust anti-bot bypass capabilities and seamless integration.
"ZenRows is the best we've found so far. When we were looking for a web scraping solution that could go through anti-bot measures at scale and reliably, we discovered ZenRows, and it works perfectly."
ZenRows addressed the company's core challenges with a suite of features designed for reliability and scale. The following boosted the team's success:
- Anti-bot bypass: ZenRows successfully navigated Cloudflare and other protection systems that had blocked previous solutions, ensuring unlimited access to critical data sources.
- Rotating premium proxies: ZenRows' rotating proxies enabled the team to access large-volume cross-regional data. The company implemented logic to automatically escalate to premium proxies when standard requests failed to obtain geo-locked data, optimizing both cost and reliability.
- Simple API integration: ZenRows’ Universal Scraper API integrated smoothly with their AWS-hosted Node.js applications. Using Axios for HTTP requests and Cheerio for HTML parsing, the team found onboarding to be straightforward and efficient. "ZenRows provided an easy onboarding. So, integrating the API into our existing Node.js script was pretty fast and pretty.", says Kamal.
- Effective support and collaboration: The team also highlighted that an effective partnership with ZenRows’ support team enabled them to optimize their scraping approach. They received custom configuration guidance for specific, difficult-to-access websites. This hands-on collaboration ensured that they could adapt quickly to any new technical challenges.
- Rapid deployment: Within weeks of evaluation, ZenRows was fully integrated into the fintech's workflow.
- High-volume processing: Advanced features, such as concurrency and auto-managed scaling, enabled the team to handle data demand spikes reliably.
Results
ZenRows enables the company to process 6,000-15,000 monthly reports from corporate registries and business databases. This reduced manual copy-paste work by 80% and enabled their 20-person team to compete effectively with much larger firms, all while operating with significantly fewer resources.
ZenRows now handles all of the team's scraping tasks, providing seamless access to hard targets. Since accessibility challenges were now resolved, automated data validation, database mapping, cost optimization strategies, and monitoring for website structure changes were quickly implemented.
To further enhance automation and insight, the company is already planning to expand its use of ZenRows in several key areas:
- Scraping browser evaluation: Exploring multi-step browser automation to handle complex workflows and reduce per-request costs.
- Social media integration: Integrating social scraping to enrich business risk profiles with social data.
- AI integration: Leveraging scraped data to train AI models for duplicate detection and advanced data interpretation.
“We're trying to see how we can include ZenRows in many other types of work that we're doing in an automated way.”
"We are about five people in the tech team. The other companies are using more people to do the same type of work that we're doing. And that's why we're trying to automate everything."
The Result: Scaling With Automated Web Scraping Data Collection
Despite having a smaller team, these automated processes enabled the company to scale up report production from 6 to about 15,000 monthly and even compete with bigger players.
ZenRows contributed significantly to the company's success with the following results:
- 80% Reduction in Manual Data Collection Time: Automating data extraction with ZenRows slashed the time spent on manual copy-paste tasks, allowing the team to focus on core business logic and deliver reports much faster.
- 6,000–15,000 Monthly Reports Processed: The fintech company scaled report production dramatically, handling thousands of due diligence reports every month, even reaching 15,000 during periods of high demand without adding headcount.
- 20–30 Automated Scraping Requests per Report: Each report now benefits from fully automated data collection across dozens of sources, ensuring comprehensive and up-to-date information for clients.
- 99%+ Success Rate on Previously Blocked Websites: ZenRows’ advanced anti-bot capabilities enabled reliable access to data sources that had previously been inaccessible. This improved data consistency and report quality.
- Competitive Positioning Against Larger Firms: The company’s small team could now compete head-to-head with much larger organizations. This created a leveled playing ground for them in the industry.
- Freed Engineering Team and Resources: With less time spent on repetitive data entry and anti-bot failure debugging, engineers could now focus on strategic initiatives like AI integration and new product features.
- Improved Data Accuracy: By removing manual copy-paste and frequent anti-bot blocks from the workflow, the team reduced the risk of data error. This results in more accurate and reliable reports.
- Scaled Operations Without Increasing Headcount: The team was able to grow its operations and client base without the need to hire additional staff, keeping costs low while expanding capacity.
"So far, our reports have significantly gone up with ZenRow. We've received great value from your team, and that's why we're sticking around. Your anti-bot bypass feature helped us a lot."
Looking to automate your data collection? Find out more about ZenRows’ Universal Web Scraper.
Key Takeaways
- Automation enabled rapid scaling to 15,000 reports monthly with a lean team, increasing ROI.
- Advanced anti-bot bypass was critical for accessing protected data sources reliably.
- Seamless API integration sped up deployment and reduced engineering effort.
- Responsive vendor support helped overcome unique technical challenges.
- Automating manual tasks freed up engineering resources for higher-value work.
- Only using essential features when required is essential for balancing cost optimization with efficiency.
Why ZenRows is the Best Solution for Risk Assessment Teams
ZenRows empowers risk assessment teams to deliver faster, more accurate reports with minimal effort. By bypassing anti-bot protections, it ensures uninterrupted access to critical corporate registries and business databases, eliminating delays and data gaps. With automated data collection that seamlessly integrates into your existing tech stack, ZenRows turns complex, time-consuming data collection into a reliable, scalable, and high-impact reporting process, like this fintech company.
Do you also want to get more business impact with fewer resources?
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