Recordati Streamlines Global Data Operations and Achieves 31% Revenue Growth with CData Sync

As a leading international pharmaceutical company, Recordati operates an extensive network of facilities, including two chemical plants, seven manufacturing plants, and numerous R&D and distribution centers worldwide. With this complex operational footprint, efficient data management is crucial for maintaining competitive advantage and driving growth.

The challenge: modernizing global data operations

Despite their expansive operations, Recordati’s data infrastructure was managed by just three team members, all responsible for replicating critical financial and supply chain data from multiple SAP instances into SQL Server. The company faced several key challenges:

• High data volumes, requiring incremental processing: As the company’s operations scaled, they were faced with high data volumes, which had to be processed incrementally. However, their existing SSIS-based data extraction pipelines were too labor-intensive and did not natively support the CDC capabilities the team needed to scale.
• Limited connectivity options across ecosystems: The team struggled with connecting a mix of legacy SAP ECC systems and modern tools like Salesforce, SAP S/4 HANA, and Power BI Cloud. The company’s decision-makers rely on Power BI as their main source of business intelligence (BI), which presents a cross-ecosystem integration challenge with SAP.
• Complex hybrid cloud and on-premises environment: In addition to integration needs across multiple ecosystems, the company faced challenges integrating across a mix of cloud and on-premises environments and needed a solution that could handle both easily.

“We had challenges accessing data from SAP ECC with an old version in some countries. I had to build pipelines to collect data from our on-premises ERP, cloud CRM, and other disparate operational systems into a central data warehouse for reporting,” notes Marco Ribaldone, who manages the Business Intelligence Center of Excellence at Recordati.

Marco’s team was using SSIS to support ingestion into their data warehouse. However, this was a manual process that required selecting columns from each table, programming data flows, and implementing the logic for incremental updates from scratch. This process took Marco’s small team up to a week for more complex data transfers.

The solution: unified data integration with CData Sync

Recordati implemented CData Sync to create a seamless data pipeline between their various systems. The solution enabled them to replicate SAP ERP, S/4 HANA, Oracle EPM, and Salesforce data into SQL Server in an automated fashion, without the need to manually design incremental replication and schema change detection logic.

They can also connect cloud services (like Power BI Cloud, SAC, and Salesforce) with on-premises systems like SAP ECC while processing 1.5 billion rows of data monthly. The team also maintains compliance with European data privacy and data residency laws through an on-premises deployment model that connects to cloud systems.

Overall, this solution has allowed a three-person BI team to support Recordati’s 3500 global data consumers.

“When there is a problem, the tool is able to light some red alerts and tell me. It’s very good because my team is just me and a couple of colleagues; we have to intervene quickly and provide data to our internal customers.”

– Marco Ribaldone, Manager, Business Intelligence Center of Excellence, Recordati

The result: accelerated growth and efficiency

The implementation of CData Sync has transformed Recordati’s data operations—a three-person BI team now effectively supports the company’s 300 decision-makers and 3,500 global data users, with enterprise reporting up to the CEO level. Sync allows this data to make it into decision-makers’ hands up to seven times faster, which improves the company’s agility and allows it to respond quickly to market and supply chain developments. The bottom-line result for the company is 31% annual revenue growth, supported by enhanced data-driven decision-making at all levels.

The solution also supports seamless integration across ecosystems like SAP, Salesforce, and Microsoft, allowing users to visualize data using their preferred tools and environments.

“CData is working very smoothly for us. I prefer to use Sync to bring the raw data from all ecosystems into the SQL environment, creating staging areas for use across all our analytics processes,” says Marco Ribaldone, describing the solution’s reliability and flexibility.

Looking forward

Recordati continues to expand its use of CData Sync, with plans to integrate additional data sources while maintaining its critical financial reporting infrastructure. The solution’s scalability and connection-based pricing model provide predictability and cost-effectiveness as data volumes grow. Recordati will also look to replace more and more of its SSIS pipelines with automations supported by CData Sync.

Experience the power of CData Sync

Transform your organization’s data operations with CData Sync. Whether managing complex hybrid environments, dealing with legacy systems, or scaling for growth, CData Sync provides the reliability and flexibility you need. Contact us today to learn more about how CData can support your data integration needs.