Beyond Consolidation: Why Orchestration is the Real ROI Multiplier in Life Sciences

McKinsey recently published a compelling insight¹: biopharma companies that consolidate software and migrate to modern cloud-based architectures can free up as much as 30% of their R&D IT spend; resources that can then be redirected to fuel innovation, automation, and AI.

It’s a powerful number. But what if I told you it’s just the beginning?

Having worked with life sciences organizations across research, development, and manufacturing for decades, I’ve seen the challenges and complexities of systems consolidation, especially when trying to keep the business running simultaneously. This is where orchestration platforms come in. 

Data orchestration platforms bridge departments, integrate with instruments, decouple systems, and contextualize data at the source of creation of scientific data. Think of orchestration as laying the groundwork for creating a roadmap for consolidation. 

The greater the number of fragmented systems you have in a business, the slower and more expensive it is to run that business. So, while systems consolidation and portfolio optimization accelerate performance and unlock enterprise-level ROI, the data orchestration layer allows you to keep running your business as you gradually consolidate your portfolio of applications. The added bonus? The data is contextualized and made AI-ready at the source of data creation as opposed to downstream data lakes. But, more on this later.

 

The Hidden Cost of Fragmentation

Let’s step back for a moment and look at how we got here. Over time, the life sciences software landscape has been flooded with specialized point solutions, each narrowly focusing on a single task or problem. Vendors weren’t tasked with worrying about the broader ecosystem, the long-term implications, or the fact that these point solutions don’t work together.

The result? Data silos, process silos, complex and expensive regulatory compliance, a lot of Excel spreadsheets (orphan data), version control nightmares, brittle integrations, and a constantly growing burden of technical debt and shadow IT, making true automation and AI feel out of reach. In other words, data and application fragmentation have become the silent ROI killer in life sciences.

That’s why McKinsey’s estimate—that consolidating and migrating to cloud-based architectures could reduce R&D IT spend by up to 30%—is so important. But in my experience, that’s just the beginning, because it reflects the cost of inefficiencies that most companies have accepted as the norm. Consolidation surely helps cut costs, but data orchestration platforms help you create a roadmap for consolidation and real-value generation.

 

Why Data Orchestration Delivers More Than Simple Consolidation

The short answer is that while consolidation focuses on simplifying what you already have, data orchestration is about enabling the speed, agility, and scalability needed to thrive in a fast-changing environment. The combination is a win-win for life-sciences companies.

An orchestration layer isn’t just about connecting systems. It’s about coordinating how data flows, how decisions are made, and how people collaborate across the entire product lifecycle, from research to development to manufacturing. It decouples data from applications and workflows from specific tools, creating a foundation that’s far more agile, scalable, and intelligent. 

This decoupling is what gives life sciences organizations the ability to evolve without rebuilding from scratch every time a business restructures, the business climate changes, or a new scientific modality comes along. It’s also what makes your organization future-ready, positioned not just to integrate AI but to actually benefit from it without a lot of investment in time and money.

 

Rethinking ROI in the Age of Data Orchestration

And that brings us to ROI.

For years, digital transformation in life sciences has been framed around cost reduction. Consolidate your systems. Reduce IT spend. Retire legacy infrastructure. And while those savings are real, (and necessary!), they only tell part of the story.

Orchestration changes the equation. It’s more than reducing what you spend. It’s about unlocking an entirely new value. Here’s what I mean:

• Portfolio Optimization: Orchestration brings structure to sprawling IT ecosystems, enabling organizations to reduce complexity without disrupting operations. It supports phased transitions from legacy systems to next-gen tools, allowing teams to scale, adapt, and innovate without rebuilding from scratch.
• AI-Ready Data: Orchestration contextualizes data at the point of execution, making it instantly usable across teams, systems, and AI models. No more manual stitching together of data. No more cleaning after the fact.
• Faster Tech Transfers: By harmonizing processes across internal teams and external partners, orchestration minimizes handoff delays, reduces rework, and accelerates internal and external tech transfer timelines, whether it’s within your own departments, sites, or with CDMO partners.
• Compliance by Design: With audit trails, traceability, and version control built into the process, orchestration helps ensure compliance is met without adding extra overhead or manual work. You extract your business process from within your point solutions and externalize it, thus making it easier to make business process improvements without much disruption.
• Mergers and Acquisitions: Portfolio optimization and systems consolidation are never one-and-done activities. They are ongoing housekeeping efforts that must keep pace as the business undergoes continuous evolution, including mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures, all of which are commonplace in life sciences.

 

A Digital Backbone for Scalable Innovation and Real ROI

L7|ESP® is a unifying platform purpose-built for life sciences. Designed as a composable platform, it contextualizes data at the source, automates end-to-end processes, and standardizes workflows across research, development, and manufacturing. In short, it’s the digital backbone of your organization, with modular components that power AI-ready data, seamless orchestration, and cross-functional collaboration. 

Unlike traditional systems that require costly, disruptive rip-and-replace efforts, L7|ESP seamlessly layers over your existing stack, connecting and coordinating tools without halting operations, while extending the value of your prior investments. L7|ESP is also GenAI-, Agentic AI-, and ML/AI-ready, thereby accelerating your journey to integrate these technologies with the contextualized data rapidly.

It’s not about replacing what works. It’s about orchestrating what’s next, and delivering the ROI that moves the needle. 

L7|ESP also has best-in-class native applications built on the platform, such as L7 Notebooks, L7 LIMS, L7 MES/EBR, L7 Scheduling, L7 Environmental Monitoring, L7 Stability Monitoring, L7 Asset Management, and L7 Inventory Management.

 

The Real ROI Multiplier

If the last decade was about digitalizing the lab, the current one is about orchestrating the entire scientific enterprise. It’s no longer enough to consolidate applications or migrate to the cloud. To drive real ROI (measured in speed, scale, and scientific impact), life sciences organizations need a new kind of data and process foundation. One that unifies and accelerates departmental workflows, contextualizes data, removes inter-departmental bottlenecks, integrates with systems and scientific instruments, and empowers teams to move faster without having to re-architect your business every few years.

That’s what data orchestration unlocks. And that’s what L7|ESP was built to deliver.

Organizations that embrace this shift won’t just achieve higher returns—they’ll outpace the competition in agility, scalability, and innovation, because the real cost isn’t in modernizing your stack. It’s in staying complacent.

If you’re ready to explore how orchestration can support your digital transformation, visit www.l7informatics.com or contact our team.

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¹ Jeffrey Lewis, Joachim Bleys, and Ralf Raschke with Moritz Wolf, “Boosting biopharma R&D performance with a next-generation technology stack” (January 9, 2025)