How data is rewriting business strategies: the best practice of ReLife
Biz & Tech Connections: a double interview to illustrate the joint approach between business vision and technological enablement.
A project doesn’t end with go-live: that’s when the real value creation begins - through analysis, continuous adaptation, and data-driven choices.
Irakli Bano
Group IT Director of ReLife
In the field of material recovery and transformation, leveraging data to improve efficiency, transparency, and operational responsiveness is a strategic choice.
ReLife is a concrete example of forward-thinking in this regard, recognizing that data governance - combined with technology and collaboration - can transform the way a company builds its future.
In this interview, Irakli Bano, Group IT Director at ReLife, and Davide Calabrò, Senior Account Manager for Energy & Utilities at Engineering, explain how a joint approach - merging business vision with technological enablement - can effectively address today’s competitive challenges.
The goal: to turn data into a strategic advantage through solutions that support today’s decisions and anticipate tomorrow’s business needs.
#1
WHAT ARE THE MAIN BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGICAL NEEDS A COMPANY MUST ADDRESS TO EVOLVE INTO A DATA-DRIVEN ORGANIZATION?
BIZ
Irakli Bano
ReLife is a dynamic and constantly evolving organization, made up of multiple companies distributed across the territory, each with its own processes and operational specificities.
This heterogeneity generates a massive amount of data daily, coming from different sources and in various formats. However, having a large volume of data does not automatically mean having useful information - especially if that data is not easily accessible, comparable, and aggregatable.
This is where the concrete need arises: to bring coherence, centrality, and value to our informational assets. The main challenge was building a system capable of harmonizing all this information into a single, shared view - one that could communicate across the entire organization with a common language: finance, operations, management control, and strategy.
We aimed to create a solid, reliable, yet flexible and scalable structure - capable of evolving over time through the use of modern, open, and highly interoperable tools.
TECH
Davide Calabrò
From the outset, the business request was very clear and ambitious: to build a true data culture based on three key values - accuracy, accessibility, and autonomy.
We therefore designed a complete, modern, and robust Business Intelligence platform. Power BI serves as the front end for visualization and interaction, while a cloud-native Data Warehouse is the underlying architecture for data integration.
The data comes from heterogeneous sources: SAP, vertical management systems, and even Excel. The result is an interactive, navigable reporting system that covers economic-financial analysis, bridges, sales, Net Financial Position (NFP), reclassified financials, cost and profit centers - governed by security logic (RLS) and a unified semantic model shared across the organization.
#2
WHAT ORGANIZATIONAL MODEL WAS USED TO ADDRESS THESE CHALLENGES?
BIZ
Irakli Bano
From the beginning, we adopted an integrated and collaborative approach, building an organizational model in which ReLife and Engineering worked as a single team. This approach fostered deep synergy between technological expertise and business knowledge, enabling us to tackle challenges with a shared and aligned vision.
We didn’t just respond to immediate needs - we laid the foundations for a modular and scalable platform, capable of evolving over time, integrating new sources, enabling AI, activating predictive scenarios, and connecting to new information streams.
Engineering was a concrete, reliable, and present partner - not just during design and development, but also with ongoing support after go-live.
TECH
Davide Calabrò
We tackled this challenge as a true joint project, where technology played an enabling role, but never an end in itself. We worked closely with the ReLife team, combining strategic vision with attention to operational detail. A crucial aspect was the significant investment in training: we organized “Dashboard in a Day” sessions, hands-on workshops, and personalized training for key users.
This approach generated a cultural shift: data is no longer seen as an external or technical product, but as a familiar, shared, and genuinely useful daily work tool. It was a profound transformation - both technological and organizational.
#3
WHAT ARE THE TANGIBLE BENEFITS OF VIEWING DATA AS A STRATEGIC ASSET?
BIZ
Irakli Bano
The most significant benefit we’ve achieved is a widespread awareness throughout the organization.Today, ReLife doesn’t just receive data - it leads with data.
We know where to look, what to measure, when to act - and we do so collaboratively, thanks to a platform that makes information accessible and understandable to all business functions.
Having a common data-based language has made us faster, more aligned, and more effective. Decisions are quicker, more grounded, and more transparent. This change doesn’t just concern tools - it has reshaped how we think and act within the organization.
TECH
Davide Calabrò
The benefits we’ve seen emerging are significant on multiple levels.
On one hand, ReLife now has a unified, integrated, and constantly updated view of its performance - navigable and easily usable even by non-technical users. On the other hand, this shared understanding has accelerated decision-making processes, improved the quality of decisions, and fostered greater internal engagement.
The platform was designed to last and grow with the business: it’s a living asset, ready to support new needs, predictive tools, artificial intelligence, and advanced analytics. It’s not just a technical tool - it’s a strategic enabler.
#4
WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS?
BIZ
Irakli Bano
The platform we’ve built is a living organism, ready for constant evolution.
We’ve adopted a modular and scalable architecture that allows us to progressively integrate new data sources without disrupting the existing system's balance.
Our goal is to move increasingly toward predictive analysis and artificial intelligence, to anticipate trends and make even more timely decisions.
We’re already working on introducing real-time dashboards, ESG KPIs, and collaborative features that promote data sharing across business functions.
All of this is being done while maintaining centralized and rigorous governance, with full semantic consistency in business definitions to avoid ambiguity and ensure reliable analysis.
TECH
Davide Calabrò
From a technological standpoint, we’re evolving toward an increasingly advanced architecture.
Our infrastructure - based on cloud-native technologies - enables data mesh architectures, real-time connectivity through modern APIs, and the use of AI/ML services for advanced analytics.
We’re leading the shift from batch processing to streaming models that can process data flows in real time. We’re introducing data lakes for unstructured data, graph databases for complex analysis, and exploring emerging technologies such as Kubernetes, serverless architecture, and edge computing.
The goal is to ensure maximum performance, scalability, adaptability, and cost-efficiency - in pursuit of sustainable, intelligent growth.
Innovation is not just a technical matter. It requires cultural courage and strong partnerships. At ReLife, we saw all of this - and the result is a concrete, evolving, and sustainable project.
Davide Calabrò
Senior Account Manager Energy & Utilities of Engineering
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