How Solabia Group Built a Unified BI Infrastructure Across 25 Entities and 5 Continents

November 2024•10 min read

Client: Solabia Group

Industry: Life Sciences & Specialty Ingredients

Entities: 25 operating entities across the group

Geography: 19 countries, 5 continents

Challenge: No unified performance visibility across 25 entities operating on different systems

Solution: Centralized BI infrastructure with entity-level and consolidated reporting

Outcome: Complete group-level visibility with drill-down to any entity, region, or product line

Context

Solabia Group is a global leader in life sciences and specialty ingredients, operating across 25 entities in 19 countries spanning 5 continents. The group serves industries including cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, food, and biotechnology.

Despite its global scale, Solabia's analytical capabilities had not kept pace with its growth:

Each entity operated independently with local reporting tools
No standardized KPIs or performance benchmarks
Group-level visibility was limited to high-level financial consolidation
R&D output and commercial impact were disconnected

The Challenge: Global Scale Without Global Visibility

Limited Insight Into Performance Drivers

Despite operating in 19 countries with 25 entities, Solabia's leadership lacked the tools to understand what was truly driving, or dragging, performance across the group:

No way to benchmark entities or regions against each other
Sales and margin trends were only visible at a high level
Customer concentration and churn risks were untracked
R&D output and its connection to commercial results were opaque

Data Fragmentation at Scale

Each entity ran its own systems with local configurations, making any attempt at consolidated analytics a massive manual effort.

The Solution: Global BI Platform

Expecta designed and built a centralized BI infrastructure that connected all 25 entities into a single analytical layer: without disrupting local operations.

Centralized Data Architecture

Unified data model accommodating different ERP configurations
Automated ingestion from multiple source systems
Multi-currency and multi-language support

Comprehensive Analytics Suite

Group-level dashboards with drill-down to entity, region, and product line
Sales analytics covering revenue, margin, customer concentration, and growth trends
R&D analytics connecting innovation pipeline to commercial outcomes
Operational KPIs standardized across all entities for benchmarking

The Results: Global Clarity

With Expecta, Solabia achieved:

Complete group-level visibility for the first time in the company's history
Entity benchmarking enabling performance comparison across 25 entities
Customer analytics revealing concentration risks and growth opportunities
R&D-to-revenue connection making innovation investments measurable
Standardized KPIs creating a common language for performance across regions
Scalable infrastructure ready for future acquisitions and organic growth

Solabia now has the analytical foundation to manage a complex, global organization with confidence and clarity.

Why this matters for Complex Multi-Entity Organizations

This project demonstrates how a complex, multi-entity organization can gain unified visibility without disrupting local operations:

Centralization without standardization: respecting local ERP configurations while creating a single analytical layer
Investor-grade reporting: providing portfolio-level insights alongside operational detail
Scalable architecture: designed to absorb new entities from future acquisitions
Embedded partnership: ongoing BI support that evolves with the business

By building a unified data infrastructure, Solabia gained the clarity and control needed to make confident, data-driven decisions across 5 continents and 25 entities.