H2 Group, the leading reference in poker and entertainment in Brazil, implemented Omni to provide greater analytical autonomy, stronger governance, and broader access to data — exceeding data adoption goals by 30% soon after the implementation.
The fast and strategic adoption of Omni Analytics, supported by Shearwater Data, has already paved the way for a self-service data culture across the organization, a fundamental pillar to sustain the company’s accelerated growth.
About Grupo H2
Founded in 2006 by a group of friends passionate about poker, Grupo H2 began as a sports gaming company and quickly distinguished itself by leading the regulation of poker as a sport in Brazil.
Over the years, the company evolved into the largest poker and betting ecosystem in Latin America, operating through an integrated model that combines:
- Physical clubs
- Digital platforms for sports betting and online gaming
- A poker school
- Proprietary and corporate tournaments and events
Today, with more than 600 employees and approaching its 20th anniversary, Grupo H2 has experienced over 10x growth in the past three years.
This rapid expansion made data an increasingly critical asset for the organization, essential for guiding strategic decisions, supporting the launch of new products, and ensuring operational efficiency at scale.
This scenario highlighted the need to advance the organization’s data maturity, aligning Grupo H2’s innovative profile with the increasingly strategic role that data intelligence plays across the business.
The evolution of Grupo H2’s data team
The Grupo H2 data team was established in 2022 with the arrival of the current Head of Data, William Westrup. In its early years, the team’s priority was to build a strong foundation, focusing on three main initiatives:
- Organizing data sources and connecting them to business needs
- Centralizing the company’s analyses and dashboards
- Demonstrating the return on investment (ROI) of the data team
This strategy delivered results quickly. As a result, the data team grew from a single individual in 2022 to 15 professionals by 2025, evolving into a dedicated structure encompassing data platform, data science, and analytics.
However, Grupo H2’s rapid growth introduced a new challenge. While the data team continued to expand, the company’s overall headcount was growing at an even faster pace. As a result, the limitations of centralizing all analytical demands within a single team became increasingly evident, and the data team often emerged as a bottleneck.
Simple business questions began to compete with strategic initiatives. Small analyses took days to deliver, while high-impact projects were frequently interrupted by operational requests and day-to-day questions.
It became clear that centralizing all analytics within the data team was no longer sustainable. In response, Grupo H2 made a strategic decision: to establish Self-Service Analytics as a top priority for the data team in 2025.
The Strategic Shift: Self-Service Analytics as a Priority
The data team’s decision to establish a Self-Service Analytics strategy was primarily driven by the need to create a structure that would democratize access to data without compromising governance.
The strategy was built on three key pillars: The Right Tooling, Continuous Enablement, and Clear Governance.
To enable this strategy, the group allocated a dedicated Analytics Engineer, focused on developing models that make data more accessible to each business area.
The Role of Shearwater
To enable its Self-Service Analytics strategy, Grupo H2’s data team sought a specialized analytics consultancy with a strong track record. It was in this context that the company connected with Shearwater Data, a consultancy recognized for its expertise in self-service analytics, through one of Shearwater’s marketing initiatives.
Shearwater supported Grupo H2 throughout the evaluation process, leading comparative demos of different BI tools focused on self-service analytics, including solutions such as Looker and Omni. This approach allowed the team to clearly understand the trade-offs between the tools and how each one would perform in real business scenarios.
Following this phase, Grupo H2 and Shearwater Data conducted a proof of concept (POC) with Omni, based on real use cases from the business. The results of the POC demonstrated strong alignment between the platform and the data strategy of H2 Group, leading to the decision to move forward with the implementation of Omni Analytics.
Why Omni Analytics Became the Ideal Choice for Self-service
The decision to adopt Omni was driven by several key factors identified during the BI tools evaluation process:
Native, reliable AI capabilities
The presence of Omni’s AI assistant, “Blobby”, impressed users from day one. Teams use the natural language chat to answer their own questions, accelerating access to answers and increasing team autonomy.
Ease of use for non-technical users
Omni’s intuitive and flexible interface proved to be a driver of rapid adoption, enabling business users to explore data with minimal reliance on the data team. By supporting multiple ways of working, including AI, spreadsheets, SQL, and point-and-click interactions, Omni allows teams across the company to analyze data in the way that best suits them.
Built-in semantic layer ensures governance
A key differentiator was Omni’s built-in semantic layer, which makes it easy to add metric definitions, business logic, and even AI-specific context. This ensures that no matter how users explore data in Omni, it’s all grounded in the same definitions and business understanding to ensure accurate and reliable results.
Hands-on customer experience
The “Quick Start” package, combined with active Slack-based support from both the Omni and Shearwater teams, ensured that doubts and friction points were addressed quickly throughout the implementation.
Roadmap and vision alignment
The features desired by Grupo H2’s data team were closely aligned with Omni’s’ product vision and roadmap, reinforcing confidence in the platform as a long-term solution.
The Omni Analytics Implementation Journey at Grupo H2
With the decision made, Grupo H2 began the implementation of Omni. The process was marked by speed and strong user engagement from the very beginning.
The implementation strategy was built around three main pillars.
1. Technical Team Enablement with Shearwater’s Support
Over the course of approximately three months, Grupo H2’s data team worked side by side with Shearwater in a structured technical enablement process that included:
- Developer training sessions
- Co-development sessions
- Definition of data modeling best practices
- Architectural and governance discussions
All of this was conducted in close partnership with Shearwater, ensuring a solid and sustainable foundation aligned with self-service analytics best practices, while also accelerating the learning curve for teams with different levels of data maturity.
2. A Dedicated Owner to Lead the Transformation
As a first step, Grupo H2 appointed an analyst, Thiago Meneghin, who was already well recognized internally for their interest in data modeling and active participation in the POC to lead the initiative.
This individual played a critical role in defining standards, building the semantic models, and sustaining the self-service analytics strategy.
3. Engaging End Users from Day One
To ensure real adoption, Grupo H2 chose to involve key users (power users) from the earliest stages of the implementation. These users not only adopted the tool quickly, but also became internal ambassadors of Omni.
User engagement was so strong that Omni’s AI assistant, Blobby, gained an internal nickname at Grupo H2 — “Bolota”.
The rollout followed a gradual approach, onboarding small groups of users at a time. This strategy helped generate internal demand and foster the emergence of “heavy users” who now actively drive adoption across the organization.
“Omni is fantastic and is transforming H2’s relationship with data. It provides autonomy and speed and, of course, requires responsibility. Huge win by the data team.”
— Leonardo Cavarge, End User
“The speed of analysis enabled by Omni has a direct impact on decision-making, allowing for faster, more informed, and more strategic actions in a highly dynamic environment like betting. Having immediate access to relevant insights makes all the difference when it comes to identifying opportunities, correcting deviations, and maximizing results.”
— Diogo Breda, End User
Results: The Impact of Omni at Grupo H2
The adoption of Omni exceeded all expectations at Grupo H2, and self-service analytics has truly become a reality across the organization.
By leveraging Omni’s built-in semantic layer and flexible UI:
- Each business area can securely explore data, with consistent metrics and strong governance
- Non-technical users can answer business questions autonomously
- The data team has seen a significant reduction in operational requests
Although the implementation is still ongoing, tool adoption has already reached meaningful levels. Of the 12,000 minutes of usage planned by the end of the year, the company has already reached 14,000 minutes — 30% above the original target.
What’s Next: Grupo H2’s Next Steps
Grupo H2’s analytics strategy will continue to evolve. Building on the success of the initial Omni implementation, the next phase focuses on scaling both impact and reach across the organization.
Key next steps include:
- Expanding the Omni implementation to the online gaming vertical
- Onboarding new users into the analytics platform
- Driving sustained growth in end-user adoption, increasing Omni Analytics usage hours as more teams rely on data in their daily decision-making
- Providing continuous enablement in analytical skills, strengthening critical thinking and promoting the responsible and effective use of data across the workforce
- Developing data products for partners, extending analytics beyond internal use cases
Conclusion: Grupo H2 Users in a New Era of Data in the Brazilian Market
The adoption of Omni Analytics marked a turning point in Grupo H2’s data strategy. The company moved away from a centralized model and embraced a modern, governed, and scalable self-service analytics approach, positioning itself today as a reference in Brazil’s entertainment and betting industry.
This progress was made possible through the joint effort of Grupo H2, Omni, and Shearwater Data, resulting in a compelling example of how to structure self-service analytics with speed, strong adoption, and real business impact.
Beyond the technical and operational gains, the experience with both the platform and the partnership model stood out. According to Thiago, a member of the data team, the quality of support and the pace of product evolution were particularly impressive throughout the journey:
“Even though Omni is a relatively small company, the support is excellent and new features are released all the time. The updates shared via Slack are impressive.”
More than simply adopting a new BI platform, Grupo H2 took an important step toward transforming its data-driven culture. The company is not just consuming data, it is using data as a foundation for better decisions, greater autonomy, and sustainable growth.
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If, like Grupo H2, you are looking to modernize your data stack and expand self-service analytics across your organization, it may be time to partner with a specialized support.
👉 Connect with Shearwater and discover how we can elevate your BI to the next level, unlock the full potential of your data, and accelerate results with real business impact.
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