Contract research and testing for pharma, food, and environmental sectors
GBA Group operates a distributed contract-research business across pharma, food, environmental, and cosmetics testing—a portfolio that demands strict regulatory compliance, siloed lab workflows, and complex customer logistics. Their tech-stack shift reveals an identity modernization priority: they're migrating from on-premises Active Directory and Exchange toward Azure Entra ID and Microsoft 365, with three concurrent projects focused on unified identity strategy and hybrid synchronization. This infrastructure play suggests they're consolidating fractured divisions and preparing for tighter access control across geographically dispersed labs.
GBA Group is a contract-research and testing organization with over 3,000 employees based in Hamburg, Germany. The company provides analytical, laboratory, and logistical services to the pharmaceutical, medical-device, cosmetics, chemical, food, and environmental sectors. Core competencies include pharmaceutical and food analysis, environmental testing, water quality assessment, and consumer-protection studies. The organization serves mid-market and enterprise customers requiring regulated testing and compliance support; their business model combines recurring testing contracts with project-based analytical work. Current hiring is concentrated in engineering, operations, and research roles across Germany, reflecting operational scaling.
GBA Group uses DATEV for financials, Salesforce for CRM, LIMS and MassHunter for lab operations, LC-MS/MS and ICP-MS/ICP-OES for analytical instrumentation, and Microsoft Office suite. They are migrating to Azure Entra ID, Microsoft 365, and Teams from on-premises systems.
Current projects focus on identity infrastructure modernization: a group-wide Entra ID strategy, unified identity and permission concept across divisions, and hybrid identity synchronization to consolidate legacy on-premises systems.
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