How a global airline group made a 180 turn in entity and board management, streamlining processes, and centralizing and unifying data.

CASE STUDY – SUITE

One way flight for governance optimization: The story of a global airline company

How a global airline group made a 180° turn, transforming entity and board management through streamlined processes and centralized data.

Ottakringer Getränke AG

AT A GLANCE

Challenges

  • Obsolete legacy system (Enablon) with unreliable data and outdated UX
  • Over 600 subsidiaries and more than 1,200 mandates across multiple jurisdictions
  • Legal teams split between France and the Netherlands, each with unique needs
  • Complex regional reporting requirements compounded by the group’s layered holding structure

Results

  • Successful full migration and deployment completed in under six months
  • Centralized governance across hundreds of subsidiaries and mandates
  • Multilingual configuration (French, English, Dutch) adapted to the needs of both legal teams
  • Custom reporting setup accommodating both graphical and data-heavy preferences

Products Used

Entity Management
Board Portal

INTRODUCTION

For this leading global airline group, the turning point came when the IT department identified that the existing Entity Legal Management (ELM) solution was nearing end of support. With time on its side, the company began planning for the future. With more than 600 subsidiaries spanning from aviation to logistics and services, and a dual-headed legal structure, this was more than a software replacement. This project was going to change long-standing habits for the best, with the goal of unifying entity management tools for everyone whilst adhering to very specific requirements for each country.

This major change management initiative was led by IT leadership and supported by an internal sponsor who drove the project at a group level rather than dividing it by region. While each region had its own ways of working, the two departments shared a common goal: to improve visibility and control with a more tailored solution.

THE CHALLENGE

Same airline, two flights paths

The legal teams were not the original decision-makers, but they would become key stakeholders. They held an important role throughout the process by defining their specific wants and needs. One of the biggest challenges in the project were the cultural differences in terms of reporting and ways of working, followed by data issues. That was soon followed by data concerns: while the group managed an enormous volume of information, there were major questions around its consistency and overall reliability. The biggest challenges were:

  • An obsolete legacy system (Enablon) with unreliable data and outdated UX.
  • Over 600 subsidiaries and more than 1,200 mandates across multiple jurisdictions.
  • Legal teams split between two regions, each with different needs, languages, and levels of digital literacy.
  • Complex and divergent reporting requirements tied to the group’s layered holding structure.
  • Internal resistance to change, as some users were deeply comfortable with the old platform and hesitant to migrate.

To ensure a smooth transition from the legacy tool, Enablon, DiliTrust took full ownership of the data migration. Once project sponsors were appointed and priorities defined, the initiative officially kicked-off.

THE SOLUTION

A tailored platform for entity management

Although the IT leadership initiated the project and mandated a unified solution, the legal teams ultimately became the key stakeholders. They played a crucial role in decision-making. After all, who better to define needs and wants than the end users themselves. Since the Group was already familiar with DiliTrust, having been avid users of the Board Portal tool for years, adopting DiliTrust’s ELM solution (initially deployed as Gov 1) quickly became the obvious choice. Beyond this familiarity, a key differentiator from competitors was DiliTrust’s ability to handle the entire migration process from A to Z, a major advantage for a project of this scale. Once the tool went live, the legal teams from each region benefited from:

A unified and consolidated entity management with a multi-lingual set-up.

An extremely personalizable solution, with conditional fields that adapt to the users region.

Different reporting logics were integrated into the platform to address country-specific needs and practices.

Extensive training programs tailored to users across teams and regions leading to positive adoption rates.

As part of these personalizations, DiliTrust enabled the airline group to generate highly adapted reports aligned with regional expectations. One team could easily extract data for detailed Excel-based reporting, while the other leveraged visual dashboards and graphical organizational mapping, each working the way they preferred, within the same unified platform.

Focus on collaboration: The ELM platform was rolled out after five months of intensive work and dedicated support. This is an impressive timeline given the circumstances, as the implementation took place during the first COVID-19 lockdown.

THE RESULTS

One platform, one shared goal

After the rollout, legal teams from each region benefited from:

  • A single, centralized platform now manages over 600 subsidiaries and 1,200 mandates, bringing clarity and structure to a once scattered landscape.
  • Monthly updated reports on ownership structures, jurisdictional exposure, and legal forms, adapted to the regional reporting preferences.
  • Ongoing trust and collaboration with DiliTrust, from the initial Gov 1 deployment to the SaaS ELM migration years later.

The airline group changed trajectories by adopting DiliTrust’s entity management solution as part of their Group efforts to unify regions and brands. To this day the tool has helped over 200 users group-wide on their entity and board management tasks.

Managing 600+ entities across multiple jurisdictions used to feel like flying blind. With DiliTrust, we finally have a clear, centralized view. Today our teams can actually work together.

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