For the Marbach Group from Heilbronn, 2023 is a special year: the family-owned company celebrates its 100th anniversary. What started as a three-person operation founded by Karl Marbach Senior has grown into a market and innovation leader in the construction of tools and stamping dies for packaging. Today, approximately 1,600 employees work at more than 20 locations worldwide. Marbach tools shape a wide variety of product packaging in industries such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and food. A new data platform and reporting solution have now laid the foundation for the company’s transformation into a data-driven organization.

The Marbach headquarters in Heilbronn. (Marbach Group)

Future-Proofing in a Fast-Moving Business

To continue Marbach’s impeccable success story, executives must navigate the company safely through an increasingly dynamic market environment. “Most of our customers rely on rapid assortment changes,” explains Dennis Benz. “Delivery times of three to four days are sometimes expected for a tool, and nearly every tool is custom-made. And the pace is accelerating further.” Consequently, Dennis Benz must respond to business questions as quickly as possible: “When I receive a call from sales colleagues or management, I need immediate, reliable figures. No one wants to wait for a callback.”

A Cognos data warehouse served the company well for more than ten years. “Our old BI system was already extensive for the company’s size and was well used by our employees. But we also had to think about the future. We wanted to leverage new possibilities in data visualization and mobile reporting, as well as cross-functional data models with new KPIs.” The switch to an IFS ERP system was the perfect opportunity to modernize reporting with Microsoft Power BI and advance the company’s digitalization.

Marbach tools are mostly custom-made. The corresponding construction plans for production are created using CAD. (Marbach Group)

Initial Setback

The first attempt with the new analysis and visualization tool failed. “It wasn’t Power BI itself—it was a technical setup issue,” says Dennis Benz. “We moved too quickly into in-house development and over-engineered the report layouts. The solution was slow, confusing, and unusable for end users.”

Microsoft recommended bringing ORAYLIS on board. The new partner impressed with methods that were new to Marbach: “As part of a Data Strategy Assessment, we created an initial dataset for sales and built a prototype in Power BI with prioritized dimensions and facts. I had never seen anything like this in previous data projects. At first I was skeptical, but the results quickly convinced me. Consistently linked dimensions and facts provided new insights immediately.”

Data Platform and Reporting Revamped

The first step was rebuilding the data foundation. Aligning with the ERP modernization, a cloud approach was chosen—a Data Lakehouse in Microsoft Azure. “We migrated all relevant data from Cognos to this platform and made it available,” explains Raphael Bruns, Project Manager at ORAYLIS. “This includes various sales data, revenue reports, contribution margins, sales volumes, and individual P&L entries—particularly valuable for month-end closing. The right solution architecture combined with highly scalable Azure services enables high-performance delivery for diverse reporting scenarios in Power BI.”

Raphael Bruns, Senior Project Manager at ORAYLIS. (ORAYLIS GmbH)

Simultaneously, the team redesigned Marbach Group’s extensive reporting landscape, this time focusing on balance: “Based on past experiences, we had to find the optimal balance between familiar and new elements,” says Raphael Bruns. “We couldn’t overwhelm users, or we’d lose them. Together, we developed a modern reporting concept aligned with current information design standards.”

Reporting with Multiple Benefits

The new reporting quickly regained user trust, offering clarity and ease of use: “Visualizations provide high value to our users,” emphasizes Dennis Benz. “Many employees can now perform independent analyses for the first time. We can delve deeper into the data and derive meaningful business insights. Previously, KPIs could only be analyzed individually; now, we have a fully linked data model connecting multiple dimensions.”

For Dennis Benz and his department, user independence is key. “I have only three controllers for the entire company. So, alongside high system performance, it’s crucial that users can work with the data independently within defined standards, without coming to us for every question. This allows a small team to manage all tasks effectively.”

The informational content of reports has also increased, integrating new KPIs. For example, end-of-month order backlogs are now immediately visible, enabling proper revenue allocation. Previously, special analyses and IT intervention were needed. Sales can now also see order statuses directly, instantly identifying late deliveries, eliminating the need for previous labor-intensive reports.

Well-Prepared for the Digital Future

Marbach’s product range is also becoming increasingly digitised. Customers can monitor and optimise their die-cutting processes with the help of production data and corresponding key figures. (Marbach Group)

The new sales reporting is just the beginning. The cloud platform allows diverse data to be leveraged for business purposes. “We have a full agenda,” confirms Dennis Benz. “Finance reporting has been successfully implemented. Next is HR reporting, followed by production. This will be particularly exciting, with huge data volumes containing extensive optimization potential. Customers will benefit directly through improved transparency of order status and faster delivery times.”

That these plans will be realized with ORAYLIS is unquestioned: “We value a partner who guides us rather than just executing our requests blindly. ORAYLIS does this extremely well. From conception to implementation, the collaboration is always constructive and goal-oriented. We have full transparency at all times and achieve the desired results quickly and efficiently. That’s why we will continue our journey to becoming a data-driven company together with our partner.”

turn your data into value.