When integration works, the whole business moves faster

There's a version of integration that every IT leader in consumer goods knows well. Multiple platforms, each solving a different problem. Subscription costs that compound as the business grows. A team stretched thin trying to maintain connections that were built for a different era. And a business that wants to move fast—new channels, new partners, new markets—waiting on an integration backlog that never seems to shrink.

It doesn't have to work that way. CONA Services and Nu Skin Enterprises are two consumer goods companies that decided to stop managing complexity and start eliminating it. Both chose SAP Integration Suite. Both came out the other side faster, leaner, and better positioned to compete.

CONA Services: connecting a distributed bottling network

CONA Services LLC is the technology and shared-services provider for Coca-Cola's independent North American bottling partners. The role is inherently complex: coordinating data, workflows, and system integrations across a network of autonomous bottling operations, each running its own business while sharing infrastructure and processes through CONA.

For years, the integration layer holding that network together had been built up piecemeal. Legacy approaches, fragmented processes, and the overhead of managing integrations at bottler scale drove costs up and slowed the network's ability to respond to market conditions. When a bottler needed to exchange data with a new retail partner, or when a shared workflow needed updating across the ecosystem, the effort involved was out of proportion to the outcome.

CONA deployed SAP Integration Suite to replace that complexity with a single, unified integration architecture. Cloud Integration—the platform's core message processing capability—handled end-to-end process integration across SAP and third-party systems throughout the bottler network. API Management gave the network a governed, consistent interface for connecting with partners and customers, replacing ad hoc connectivity with something that could be monitored, maintained, and scaled.

The results were significant. CONA Services achieved a 50% reduction in runtime costs by consolidating and streamlining integration processes across the bottling ecosystem. Standardized workflows replaced fragmented ones. Real-time data sharing replaced batch exchanges that had introduced lag into decisions that needed to be fast.

For a network where reliable data exchange between dozens of independent bottlers is foundational to everything else, that kind of structural improvement—not just cheaper, but genuinely faster and more agile—is what a platform decision is supposed to deliver.

Skin Enterprises: from weeks to days across 54 markets

Nu Skin Enterprises sells skincare and wellness products in 54 markets worldwide, generating US$1.73 billion in annual revenue. The company runs SAP S/4HANA at the core of its operations, alongside SAP CRM, SAP Marketing Cloud, and a range of third-party applications that support its global commercial footprint.

By the time the integration landscape was examined closely, four separate integration solutions were in use to connect those systems. Each carried its own subscription cost. Some required specialist skills the IT team didn't have in-house. And when the business needed to connect a new platform or activate a new marketing channel—which in a company operating across 54 markets happens constantly—lack of integration was consistently the constraint.

Nu Skin consolidated onto SAP Integration Suite, replacing the four-platform patchwork with a single solution. Ready-to-go integrations between SAP S/4HANA, SAP CRM, SAP Marketing Cloud, and third-party applications reduced the time and effort required to connect systems. API Management provided internal monitoring across all integrations, giving the IT team the visibility they needed without additional tooling. A dedicated tenant for sensitive internal communications addressed confidentiality requirements within the same platform.

The outcomes were direct and measurable:

• US$350,000 saved in subscription costs for replaced integration technology and adapters
• Integration build time dropped from several weeks to 1–2 days
• A single platform replaced four, with consistent monitoring across the entire landscape

The speed metric is the one that changes how a business operates day to day. When building a new integration takes a day or two instead of several weeks, the calculus around new channels, new partners, and new market activations shifts entirely. Integration stops being something that needs to be planned around and becomes something that just happens.

The pattern behind both stories

CONA Services and Nu Skin Enterprises operate in different parts of the consumer goods landscape. One manages shared technology infrastructure for a network of independent bottlers. The other is a direct consumer brand selling through retail and direct channels across more than 50 countries. Their integration challenges looked different in the specifics.

But the underlying dynamic is the same. Both had accumulated more integration complexity than the business could afford—in cost, in speed, and in the ongoing drag it placed on every initiative that required connecting something new. Both needed a platform that could serve their SAP landscape while reaching across the full ecosystem of partners, channels, and third-party systems. And both found that consolidating onto SAP Integration Suite delivered more than cost reduction: it delivered the operational agility to act faster when the market required it.

That's the distinction worth paying attention to, cost and time gains together shift the conversation from IT spend to competitive advantage. Reducing integration costs is a finance outcome. Reducing integration time is an operational one. When both happen together—as they did for CONA Services and Nu Skin—the business case stops being about technology procurement and starts being about competitive position.

Consumer goods markets don't wait for integration backlogs to clear. The companies that can connect, adapt, and respond faster than their competitors have a structural advantage that doesn't show up on a platform comparison spreadsheet. It shows up in retailer satisfaction scores, in time-to-market for new channels, and in the confidence to say yes to opportunities that would previously have required a six-week IT project to support.

Read more SAP Integration Suite customer stories here.