Top results
Built a single source of truth for operational and financial data
Unified data models across global sites eliminated conflicting reports and enabled consistent decision making.
Cut new interface implementation from days to hours
A cloud-native architecture with Coalesce enabled rapid development and deployment of new data pipelines.
Accelerated onboarding for new team members
Intuitive visual modeling and documentation allowed new hires to become productive within weeks, without deep SQL expertise.
Established a foundation for AI and advanced analytics
The modern platform now supports forecasting, simulation, and other advanced use cases.
Pain points
Conflicting versions of the truth
Years of siloed reporting led to constant debates over which numbers were correct.
Excel-based reporting hit its limits
Critical logistics reporting depended on fragile spreadsheets that regularly crashed.
Legacy SAP BI/BW lacked flexibility
Outdated tools couldn’t support the speed, scale, or change frequency the business needed.
Limited internal capacity created bottlenecks
A single expert owned key reports, slowing progress and increasing risk.
The challenge
When Director IT Alexander Grutsch reviewed COLTENE’s reporting landscape, he found a fragile environment built on SAP Business Warehouse, legacy BI tools, and sprawling spreadsheets. Business leaders compared multiple versions of the same metrics, while overnight batch jobs and opaque process chains made every change slow and risky.
The evaluation
COLTENE set out to select a cloud data warehouse and transformation platform that could scale with SAP data, reduce manual SQL development, and remain manageable for a lean team.
The migration
COLTENE began with two high-impact use cases: logistics reporting and financial and sales reporting that previously relied on SAP BW and Excel. Working with consulting partner Xebia and an internal SAP/BW specialist, the team rebuilt business warehouse logic directly in Snowflake, using Coalesce to design and orchestrate pipelines.
SAP data was first ingested into Snowflake, where JSON-based extracts from dozens of source tables were converted into usable relational structures. Coalesce’s visual node types, built-in handling of SAP JSON, and environment promotion simplified development and deployment. In total, the team migrated 82 SAP tables, with complex scenarios now taking roughly two to three times less development time than before.
The impact
With Snowflake and Coalesce in place, COLTENE replaced scattered reports and brittle spreadsheets with a unified, governed data platform. The company established a single source of truth, reduced interface development from days to hours, accelerated onboarding, and laid the groundwork for AI-driven analytics.
IT gains a unified data platform across global sites
Previously, each region relied on its own mix of SAP extracts, legacy BW reports, and Excel models, often using different definitions for sales, inventory, and backorders. Data refreshed only once per night, and tracing KPIs back to SAP required hours of manual work.
COLTENE standardized on Snowflake as its central data source, with Coalesce preparing and combining SAP and other systems into shared models. The data team built six to seven pipeline endpoints that serve as consistent interfaces for analytics tools and downstream applications. Coalesce lineage made it easy to trace metrics from dashboards back to SAP source tables, supporting governance and faster change. The platform is now ready to integrate additional ERP systems without creating new silos.
The data team delivers insights faster with less effort
Before the migration, progress depended heavily on a single SAP/BW expert responsible for complex logic and process chains. Coalesce introduced a structured, visual approach to pipeline development, with configurable node types for joins, slowly changing dimensions, and SAP JSON handling.
As two additional data engineers joined, they became productive within weeks. Today, three internal users plus a consulting partner maintain pipelines at a pace that would have taken roughly three times longer using the legacy BI stack.
Business teams trust a single source of truth
For business users, the shift from personal spreadsheets to centrally governed data was immediate. A critical logistics use case that once depended on a fragile Excel file is now delivered as a daily updated dashboard powered by Snowflake and Coalesce. Finance, sales, and operations teams align on shared definitions while retaining flexibility to explore data in Power BI.
Lineage visibility reduced reconciliation work and increased trust in group-level reporting, including confidence in the one-day reporting delay. At the same time, the new platform opened the door to innovation. COLTENE plans to shorten refresh cycles toward hourly updates and use Coalesce-built interfaces to power new data products, such as exposing order and logistics status to customers and suppliers.
An AI initiative is already underway, using this trusted data for forecasting, simulation, document-based use cases, and other advanced analytics, reinforcing COLTENE’s shift toward data-driven decision making.