Customer Stories 
Summary
Long a trendsetter in the Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization industry (CDMO), Siegfried Holding AG undertook a project to revamp its spreadsheet-driven performance management approach. While cost-effective and familiar, Excel-based performance evaluations were limiting visibility, scalability, and control.
To support a growing global workforce, Siegfried partnered with Avature to implement an agile performance management solution. The goal was to replace spreadsheets with a single, centralized performance management platform capable of reflecting the organization’s culture, values, and preferred evaluation workflow.
About Siegfried Holding AG
Headquartered in Zofingen, Switzerland, Siegfried is a leading global CDMO, offering pharmaceutical industry partners a broad range of custom development services, drug substance, and drug product manufacturing capabilities.
The company’s core competency lies in process development and the integration of chemical and pharmaceutical expertise into a single business model, helping customers scale the production of innovative pharmaceutical products worldwide.
Performance Management Challenges in a Global Organization
As Siegfried expanded its business operations, the organization evolved into a highly international workforce spanning multiple locations and countries.
This growth exposed the limitations of a paper-based, spreadsheet-driven performance management process. Talent leaders were tasked with evaluating employee performance across regions without a flexible or integrated performance management system.
Once evaluation spreadsheets were distributed to managers, HR teams lost visibility into participation and progress. Measuring engagement, tracking completion, and maintaining process control became nearly impossible. Katharina Karpf, Siegfried’s Senior HR Project Manager and Head C&B, described performance management at the time as a “black hole.”
From an HR perspective, the implementation of the Avature solutions has proven to be extremely powerful.”
Katharina Karpf
Senior HR Project Manager and Head C&B at Siegfried
Core Objectives for a Modern Performance Management Solution
As the drawbacks of spreadsheet-based performance management became increasingly clear, the challenges outweighed the benefits. Printing, distributing, and collecting evaluation forms was labor-intensive, costly, and ineffective for a global workforce.
Siegfried sought a single-source performance management solution that could:
- Support its traditional target-setting and evaluation framework
- Scale easily to accommodate new acquisitions and organizational growth
- Evolve over time without disrupting existing performance strategies
Rather than redesigning how performance was evaluated, talent leaders wanted performance management software that simplified and streamlined the experience while remaining aligned with Siegfried’s values, culture, and legacy.
The Key Results
Working together, Avature and Siegfried developed an agile performance management solution that addressed the organization’s most pressing challenges while remaining faithful to Siegfried’s focus on simplicity and ease of use.
Employees can now easily access all of their performance targets in a centralized location, encouraging greater participation in the process. They are also able to review the formulas for each target category, helping drive transparency across the organization.
For managers, all performance management information is accessible in one place with a single click. This makes it easier to provide continuous feedback while saving time and reducing administrative effort.
For HR, talent stakeholders now have full process control, including access to KPIs and robust reporting. HR teams can track participation, address engagement issues as they arise, and make data-driven decisions related to workforce needs. Data protection is no longer a concern. Designed with advanced data support and security measures, Siegfried’s performance management solution ensures compliance with GDPR and other major data protection regulations.
With Avature, we found a solution and provider that allowed us to implement a tailored-made process and further develop the solution going forward.”
Katharina Karpf
Senior HR Project Manager and Head C&B at Siegfried
Conclusion: Future-Proofing Performance Management
Internal surveys show that employees welcomed the transition to a more intuitive, paperless performance management process. Talent leaders continue to refine the solution with new features and enhancements based on ongoing feedback.
This continuous improvement approach enables Siegfried to future-proof its employee performance management strategy while supporting a global, evolving workforce.
