Givaudan's Taste & Wellbeing Marketing & Consumer & Sensory Insights (CSI) team in Europe commands a strategic advantage in the competitive F&B sector: they guide some of the world's largest food and beverage brands in flavor strategy and market positioning. Yet despite this critical role, the team faced a business drag that threatened competitive velocity—research scattered across platforms, folders, and inboxes consumed valuable leadership time and delayed decision cycles.

The transformation was dramatic. By consolidating insights into a single platform through Stravito, the team now executes projects 3–10x faster, expands stakeholder support without proportional headcount growth, and redirects executive attention toward strategic innovation and business development rather than information retrieval.

The Business Case: Hidden Friction in the Supply Chain

Givaudan is a global leader in flavors and fragrances, with more than 16,900 employees worldwide. The European Marketing & CSI team serves customers across beverages, sweet goods, dairy, savory, snacks, and healthcare—categories where consumer insights directly drive commercial success and competitive differentiation.

The team interfaces with internal stakeholders across marketing, sensory, and technical functions, plus external customers spanning global and regional food and beverage manufacturers. This complex operating model demands rapid, evidence-based collaboration.

Yet the practical reality diverged from the strategic ideal. Consumer and sensory research lived across external platforms, internal systems, personal folders, and undocumented team knowledge. Answering a single customer brief required scattered reconnaissance—knowing where information resided and who possessed it. This friction compounded: slower decision cycles, increased reliance on inference when evidence proved elusive, and mounting cognitive load that degraded team capacity and morale.

The strategic problem was clear: inefficient access to existing intellectual capital was constraining decision velocity and team capability. Leadership needed a scalable solution—what one team member called a "Google for research"—to unlock insights already generated and free executive capacity for higher-value work.

The Strategic Selection: Evaluating Vendor Partners for Scale

Givaudan evaluated several vendors against a rigorous procurement framework. Stravito emerged as the optimal partner across four decision criteria.

Vendor Alignment and Service Culture. From discovery phase onward, the Stravito team demonstrated a B2B service orientation that aligned with Givaudan's own customer-centric ethos. "The attitude made a big difference," says Basak Oker, a key stakeholder. "You could feel, 'We're here for you.'"

User Experience and Adoption Economics. Stravito delivered modern, intuitive design that required minimal training—essential for scaling adoption beyond specialist teams to broader stakeholders. Faster time-to-proficiency reduced implementation risk and accelerated ROI realization.

Technical Velocity and Integration. The implementation timeline was critical. Stravito supported rapid deployment, including seamless integrations with key external research providers—reducing implementation friction and time-to-value.

Return on Investment and Total Cost of Ownership. The selection was not price-driven but value-driven. Stravito's combination of speed, usability, vendor support, and demonstrated adoption rates created measurable business justification for the investment.

The team branded their platform instance "The Genie"—signaling organizational alignment around the vision of unlocking research potential at scale.

Results: Operational Leverage and Strategic Capacity Expansion

Post-launch performance demonstrates material business impact.

Decision Velocity. Project cycle times have compressed 3x on many initiatives, and up to 10x on others. By deploying AI-driven synthesis of internal and external research, work that previously spanned weeks now completes within days or hours. This acceleration translates directly to faster time-to-market and competitive responsiveness.

Resource Efficiency. Consolidated research eliminates duplicate work and redundant commissions. The CSI team now supports more customer briefs with existing headcount, while the organization avoids unnecessary research spending when internal evidence suffices. This operational leverage drives margin improvement without capacity expansion.

Strategic Capability Expansion. Stravito underpins two critical business functions. For proactive innovation—designing category-defining "iconic" flavors—the platform supports a structured Innovation Roadmap process that accelerates trend immersion and strategic foresight. For reactive customer engagements, the platform enables regional teams to rapidly understand local markets through unified research, enabling more informed and confident customer conversations and strengthening competitive positioning.

Formal KPIs continue to evolve, with further impact measurement underway. However, early data demonstrates meaningful business lift.

The Strategic Agenda: Expanding Scope and Organizational Reach

Beyond quantitative gains, the initiative delivers intangible but material benefits. Teams redirect time from administrative search tasks toward creative development, cross-functional collaboration, and strategic thinking—activities that drive innovation and business growth.

As Basak reflects, Stravito liberates colleagues to invest time "thinking about new opportunities and new ideas – and maybe have some time to themselves… more time at home with their loved ones, kids, or dogs, or cats."

Currently deployed across European regional and local marketing and CSI teams, the expansion roadmap targets sales and technical stakeholders—extending insight-led decision-making across the full customer-facing organization. Broader global deployment remains under strategic review, but the direction is clear: insight velocity is now a competitive lever.

In an F&B landscape where market agility and consumer fidelity drive business outcomes, Givaudan's transformation demonstrates how operational infrastructure—when designed to reduce decision friction—becomes a strategic asset. For Givaudan, Stravito accelerates the transition from research access to market-informed decision-making and commercial momentum.

About Stravito

Stravito is the Insights Intelligence Platform global brands trust to turn their existing research into confident, growth-driving decisions. Purpose-built for insights teams, Stravito pairs best-in-class AI with human expertise to apply vetted knowledge in decision-critical moments.

The platform unifies research in a secure space where teams ask strategic questions and receive synthesized, source-cited answers via the Stravito AI Assistant. AI Personas—built from your own segmentation studies—simulate authentic consumer perspectives, enabling teams to stress-test products, campaigns, and strategies in real-time. The result: evidence-backed decisions, accelerated market impact, and commercial momentum.

Founded in Sweden in 2017, Stravito is trusted by global leaders including Nestlé, and Comcast. The company is ISO 27001 certified, SOC 2 Type II attested, and has been recognized in the Financial Times' FT 1000 list of Europe's fastest growing companies.