Background
Christopher has worked in IT for more than 15 years. His work covers solution and enterprise architecture. He also works on systems integration. His digital transformation work moves a company's processes and data off old systems and onto new ones without stopping the business. He draws on that experience to assess how each system fits the wider estate as well as what it does by itself.
Career
Christopher has led programmes for Enel and Edison. He has also led programmes for Plenitude and Reale Mutua. These organisations run large, regulated operations, so their IT programmes involve tight dependencies between systems and strict control over data. He now applies that experience at C+P Consulting. Lucio Pieroni and Marco Caprino founded the firm, and it has 14 or more specialists across three global offices. In a team of that size, the architect is close to the client's own teams from selection through to go-live.
Architecture work
At C+P, Christopher works on PLM architecture for consumer-goods manufacturers such as Perfetti Van Melle and Bolton Food. He also does this work for Europastry. A PLM platform holds a manufacturer's specifications and formulations. Regulatory and labelling data sit there too, but the platform only works when it is set up to match how the business develops products. He designs that fit by deciding where the data lives and which system owns each record. He also plans how the platform connects to the rest of the company's IT. When this design is weak, problems show up later as duplicate specifications or teams that go back to spreadsheets.
Integration work
Christopher's integration work connects PLM with enterprise resource planning (ERP) and the other systems a manufacturer already runs. PLM integration matters because a recipe or specification approved in PLM has to reach purchasing and production without anyone typing it in again. If the link breaks, the factory works from data that no longer matches the approved product. Integration design varies between companies because it depends on how old the ERP is and how clean the existing data is. Data migration is where the real difficulty lies.
Sectors
Of the three sectors Christopher has worked in, the first is energy and utilities, where he has worked at Enel and Edison. His work at Plenitude is also in this sector. The second is insurance, at Reale Mutua. At C+P, he works in consumer goods manufacturing, which covers food and beverage companies. It also covers beauty and ingredients companies. All three sectors carry heavy regulatory obligations. Each also depends on accurate master data held across several systems.
Platforms
Christopher works hands-on with AWS and Azure, the two cloud platforms that much of his architecture runs on. Cloud choice affects how a PLM platform connects to other systems and where its data is hosted. It also shapes how the setup scales as a manufacturer adds sites or brands. He chooses a design based on the client's existing cloud estate, so the new setup fits what the IT team already runs.
Areas of expertise
Christopher Fresca's expertise covers solution and enterprise architecture. His systems integration expertise covers PLM and ERP integration. He also specialises in digital transformation. He delivers work across these disciplines through Agile or stage-and-gate methods. Each discipline covers a different part of a programme.
Architecture at two levels
Solution architecture designs one system so it does its job well. Enterprise architecture looks across every system a company runs and decides how they work together. Christopher works at both levels when he designs a PLM configuration and checks how it affects ERP and reporting downstream.
Integration across systems
His integration expertise covers the interfaces between systems. In consumer goods, the link that matters most runs from PLM to ERP. Whether that link holds is what decides if a PLM rollout keeps working once the project team has left.
Delivery methods
Christopher uses Agile for configuration work that teams test and adjust in short cycles, and he also delivers through stage-and-gate. Stage-and-gate suits programmes that need formal approval before each phase starts. Product development in food and beauty already follows gate reviews, so stage-and-gate fits those companies well.