Bracco: Empowering financial governance and operational excellence in the cloud
Consolidating global operations and finance
Seeking a unified cloud platform, Bracco implemented SAP Cloud ERP Private applications and SAP Integration Suite across 38 entities in 19 countries. As a result, the imaging diagnostics leader has unified finance and controlling, enabling operational excellence and a cloud-first future.
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partner |
| Life sciences | Milan, Italy | 4,000+ employees | Avvale S.p.A. |
volume growth in quality, maintenance, and procurement operations.
rise in operational capacity in terms of transactions or reports.
interfaces standardized on SAP Business Technology Platform.
Global CIO, Bracco S.p.A.
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partner |
| Life sciences | Milan, Italy | 4,000+ employees | Avvale S.p.A. |
volume growth in quality, maintenance, and procurement operations.
rise in operational capacity in terms of transactions or reports.
interfaces standardized on SAP Business Technology Platform.
Global CIO, Bracco S.p.A.
Enabling business growth and meeting the demand for innovative technology
With nearly a century of innovation in diagnostic imaging, Bracco S.p.A. is a global leader dedicated to shaping the future of prevention and precision medicine, serving patients and radiology professionals in more than 100 countries.
Bracco has worked with SAP solutions for more than 27 years, during which the company has progressively expanded by acquiring multiple international subsidiaries. But the legacy landscape on SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) had become increasingly fragmented, highly customized, and complex to govern.
As new legal entities were integrated over time, local requirements were often addressed through tailored solutions, resulting in heterogeneous financial and controlling models, localized processes, limited integration, and growing inconsistencies in data governance. This incremental evolution, driven by business growth rather than a unified architectural vision, significantly increased the overall complexity of the ERP landscape.
Managing 38 legal entities, each with its own reporting requirements and compliance, operational, financial, and controlling models, had become highly costly, time-consuming, and difficult to coordinate without a strong and centralized governance model. Manual interventions had multiplied; transparency and global visibility had decreased; and the lack of harmonized governance limited the organization’s ability to steer operations consistently and respond rapidly to changing market demands.
To unlock its ability to innovate and drive growth, Bracco needed to simplify governance, boost resilience, increase agility, and adopt the latest technology. Transformation in a digital and dynamic world required a modern, cloud-native platform that could help unify operations and financial governance while preserving the flexibility needed for local and regional compliance.
Having a scalable, cloud-based solution was a core element of a digital strategy designed to not only support growth but also build a foundation for innovation. This strategic shift would enable greater transparency, stronger governance, faster decision-making, and a competitive edge in an increasingly dynamic and data-driven life sciences market.
Replacing the legacy system with more-efficient, scalable cloud ERP
Bracco selected SAP Cloud ERP Private to replace its legacy system on SAP ECC and serve as the unified platform for finance, operations, and core business processes across diverse legal entities. The applications offered Bracco the flexibility and control required to manage sensitive data while taking advantage of the innovation, scalability, and operational efficiency of cloud technology. This is a critical requirement for a life sciences organization managing complex pharmaceutical and imaging operations globally.
Complementing this core system, Bracco deployed SAP Integration Suite to help standardize and simplify the complex landscape of interfaces connecting its ecosystem of production systems, logistics providers, quality management platforms, and external commercial systems. The suite delivered approximately 400 standardized interfaces through SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), eliminating custom point-to-point connections and establishing a modern, scalable integration architecture.
Implementation partner Avvale provided advisory, execution, application, and technical support during this enterprise-wide project. Bracco also worked with premium engagement offerings to access advisory services and best practice guidance and used specialized technical expertise from the Data Management and Landscape Transformation team.
This collaborative approach helped align business, IT, and project partners and deliver a cohesive digital transformation.
Global CIO, Bracco S.p.A.
Driving organizational impact with a unified enterprise
Bracco implemented SAP Cloud ERP Private in just over 18 months. This was a major achievement given the complexity of migrating highly specific and personalized data across 38 legal entities, multiple time zones, and diverse operational models. The transition began with Bracco’s main active pharmaceutical ingredients plants in the first days of the first week, followed in the same go-live week by the remaining production sites and Bracco’s European, American, and Asian business units. This regional “big-bang” approach allowed the team to validate processes and build confidence across the organization.
As part of the transformation, Bracco maintained historical data in a dedicated environment on SAP Cloud ERP Private. This enabled long-term data availability for audit, compliance, and reporting purposes while optimizing the production system for daily operations.
Extensive data harmonization and data-cleansing activities improved data quality, consistency, and standardization across countries and business divisions.
The scale and success of Bracco’s deployment was demonstrated by substantial operational volumes recorded during the first week of go-live. More than 1,200 users logged in simultaneously, executing more than 9,500 distinct transactions and reports and resulting in around 10.5 million transaction executions. The system processed around 15,000 sales orders, 2,150 process orders, 11,000 invoices, and numerous other critical business transactions, volumes comparable to and usually higher than the first week of the prior year. SAP Integration Suite delivered approximately 400 interfaces through SAP BTP, supporting production, quality, commercial, and finance processes across approximately 100 systems.
Aided by traceable and auditable data across different legal entities, Bracco achieved 100% business continuity excellence, with operations running smoothly from day one across regions and time zones. The migrated master and transactional data proved reliable, and diverse processes restarted smoothly.
SAP Cloud ERP Private also enabled Bracco to consolidate many of its technical interfaces and business processes, reducing system maintenance and improving operational efficiency. The cloud-based applications combined core finance and operational information in a more secure way while enabling compliance with local regulatory requirements across 19 countries and regions. The unified finance and controlling model delivered 100% adoption across legal entities, establishing consistent financial governance and visibility globally.
Embracing a modern cloud foundation for global growth
Having implemented SAP Cloud ERP Private at enterprise scale across multiple geographies and legal entities, Bracco is establishing best practices for cloud-based operations and finance transformation in the life sciences industry. The lessons learned from this deployment provide a foundation for other organizations seeking similar transformations.
The company is now exploring how it can use SAP BTP to enhance process automation and accelerate innovation at its own pace. Bracco also plans to use the SAP Business Data Cloud solution to help unify and govern business data and make it accessible across the enterprise to support AI and smarter decisions that create a real business impact.
In parallel, Bracco is enhancing user experiences through role-based, intuitive, and embedded analytics capabilities. These enable faster insights, streamlined processes, and increased user productivity by bringing real-time operational and financial data directly to business users.
By establishing a modern cloud foundation with SAP Cloud ERP Private and SAP Integration Suite, Bracco has positioned itself to pursue continuous improvement, drive innovation faster, and maintain its global leadership in the life sciences and diagnostic imaging markets.
Featured partner
Avvale is a long-standing SAP partner with over 20 years of experience helping organizations unlock the potential of SAP solutions. From SAP S/4HANA to cloud-based offerings, Avvale empowers businesses to optimize operations, drive innovation, and accelerate their journey to the intelligent enterprise.