A leading international pharmaceutical company operates an extensive network of facilities, including chemical and manufacturing plants, 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, the company’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:
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- High data volumes, requiring incremental processing: As the pharma business’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 the Business Intelligence manager at the company.
His 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 the small team up to a week for more complex data transfers.
The solution: unified data integration with Cdata Sync
The company 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 the organization’s 3,500 global data consumers.
The result: Accelerated growth and efficiency
The implementation of CData Sync has transformed data operations. 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 solution also supports seamless integration across ecosystems like SAP, Salesforce, and Microsoft, allowing users to visualize data using their preferred tools and environments.
Looking forward
The company 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. It 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.
