SAP SuccessFactors Variable Pay

Rezon Bio is Poland’s largest biotechnology company engaged in the development and production of biologics. It has been growing rapidly in recent years – from 400 employees in 2020 to more than 1,200 in 2025. The company conducts advanced research and development projects, has state-of-the-art laboratories and production lines, and its products have received positive reviews from the FDA and EMA. In September 2025, it strategically spun off its CDMO unit, which provides contract development and manufacturing services for biological drugs – under the Rezon Bio brand.

Such rapid growth in the demanding biotechnology sector has required facing not only stringent FDA/EMA regulations and global competition, but also the need to attract and retain a large number of specialists – scientists, biotechnologists, engineers and production specialists. In the Life Sciences industry in Poland, turnover of specialists averages 10-17% per year, depending on specialization. An additional complication is the shortage of highly skilled biotechnology specialists causing the need to source talent outside the country. Rezon Bio has relied on flexible motivation of specialists, including bonuses, which account for up to 20-30% of salary in this professional group.

The company needed a solution that would automate the complex calculations of bonus programs, provide transparency in the process, enable accurate cost forecasting, and ease the administrative burden on the HR team. The key challenges identified in creating effective bonus programs were:

Computational complexity

Bonus programs for different groups of employees in different departments and locations required different calculation formulas, taking into account both the company’s business goals and individual achievements, while relying on different bases. Manual calculations for more than 1,200 employees were time-consuming and required consolidation of data from different sources, making them prone to errors.

No access to real-time data

Working in spreadsheets, without access to real-time data, made it difficult to calculate bonuses accurately and flexibly, which depend on many variable sources of information.

Rotation and organizational changes

The company’s rapid growth in scale also meant, in addition to large-scale recruitment, constant changes in roles, promotions, and transitions between projects. Manual management of the bonus system became increasingly difficult, because it had to take into account proportional billing for employees who participated in different projects or held different positions during the year covered by the bonus program.

Insufficient transparency

Employees did not have full access to the details of the calculation of their bonus, they received information about the final result of the calculation, without being able to trace all the details and variables affecting their bonus.

Difficulties in “what-if" simulations

Before the end of the fiscal year, it was difficult to simulate different scenarios for achieving targets and their impact on bonus costs. HR needed flexible tools to model different business performance options.

Ensure HR compliance with biotech regulations (FDA/EMA)

In biotech companies, bonus processes must be fully auditable, as HR data affects financial reports (IFRS), R&D costs and manufacturing – areas under strict FDA/EMA control. With a growing workforce and a complex bonus system, it has become increasingly difficult to ensure compliance and audit readiness.

Between November 2024 and March 2025, All for One Poland carried out a project for Rezon Bio to configure SAP SuccessFactors Variable Pay in the compensation management module. The goal was to build multi-level bonus programs for different employee groups, automatically calculate bonuses for the entire organization, and publish bonus calculation details on the employee’s profile with a cover letter. The new bonus calculation model covered all company employees: R&D, production, laboratory and support teams.

The scope of work carried out by All for One included:

• Integration with Employee Central, Performance and Goals modules;
• Create business rules to qualify employees for the right bonus plans;
• Building a calculation mechanism that takes into account the degree to which business and individual goals are met;
• Publication of the bonus on the employee’s profile and generation of letters informing about the awarded bonus.

SAP SuccessFactors Variable Pay is a specialized module designed for comprehensive variable compensation management, which stands out for its ability to support complex bonus formulas that take into account business goals, individual performance and team results.
For Rezon Bio, the decision to choose this solution was a natural extension of the company’s use of the SAP ecosystem – the organization was already using SAP SuccessFactors, SAP S/4HANA, as well as SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud.

The key functionalities of SAP SuccessFactors Variable Pay from Rezon Bio’s point of view are:

• Automate complex calculations: SAP SuccessFactors Variable Pay allows you to configure multi-level bonus formulas that automatically take into account individual goal weights, achievement thresholds and payout limits. The system automatically assigns employees to the appropriate bonus plans and enables accurate calculations in real time. For Rezon Bio, this meant the ability to define separate programs for different professional groups while maintaining consistency in methodology.
• Proportional billing (proration): The system automatically recognizes changes in an employee’s career during a bonus period and proportionally settles variable salaries. If an employee worked as a laboratory specialist (bonus program A) for nine months and as a project manager (bonus program B) for three, the system will automatically calculate 75% of the bonus from program A and 25% from program B.
• Transparency and standardization: The ability to provide employees with clear information about the bonus calculation mechanism, goals achieved and bonus amounts awarded, which increases confidence in the incentive system

All for One Poland carried out a comprehensive configuration of SAP SuccessFactors Variable Pay, tailored to the specifics of the biotechnology organization. Several bonus programs were defined for different groups of employees. Each program includes precisely defined calculation formulas, achievement thresholds (threshold, target, excellence) and maximum payout limits (bonus cap).

A key element of the project was to ensure the integration of systems and the smooth flow of data:

• From Employee Central: employment history, job changes, organizational structure, information on current salaries, base amounts;
• With Performance and Goals: results of individual annual evaluations, the ability to quickly view the form when planning bonuses.

The system is configured to automatically recognize:

• Changes in the assignment of an employee to bonus programs (change of position, promotion, transfer between departments);
• Periods of participation in each bonus program;
• Proportional settlement of bonus target and earned bonus for each participation period;
• Changes in base salary during the year (the basis for calculating the bonus is also subject to pro rata settlements).

A bonus approval process has been implemented using workflow. The system automatically calculates bonuses according to defined formulas. HR then verifies the calculated bonuses, and managers at various levels review the calculation and approve the proposals, after which HR finally approves sending back information about the bonus due to the employee’s profile in Employee Central.

As part of the project, All for One provided comprehensive training to the HR team on system administration, basic configuration, report generation and troubleshooting common problems.

The implementation of SAP SuccessFactors Variable Pay has brought Rezon Bio tangible benefits at three levels of the organization: company-wide, for managers and HR, and of course for the employees themselves.

Benefits to the company:

• Reduction in bonus accrual time. It now manages to complete this stage in a much shorter time, compared to several weeks as before;
• The elimination of manual calculations has reduced the number of errors in calculating bonuses;
• Savings through proportional billing: Automatic recognition of changes in employees’ careers and proportional billing of bonus targets eliminates overpayments. For promotions during the year, the system accurately calculates the bonus taking into account the period in each position.

The perspective of managers and HR:

• Reduction of HR administrative burden. No tedious, repetitive calculation tasks using spreadsheets – the team can focus on strategic activities: recruitment, talent development, succession planning, building organizational culture.
• More effective communication with employees, reduction of complaints about the amount of bonus by approx. 95%. Managers can base performance and compensation discussions on objective, transparent data from the system, making difficult conversations easier and building trust;
• Access to flexible analytical tools. The ability to create reports in SAP Analytics Cloud showing team performance, goal achievement or projected bonuses. Such reports facilitate effective management of team motivation and decision-making on additional rewards based on complete, up-to-date data presented in an easy-to-read format.

Benefits for employees:

• Transparency and fairness. Employees have access to clear information about the mechanism for calculating bonuses, the weights of individual goals and achievement thresholds. They understand what actions lead to higher bonuses, which increases their motivation;
• Faster and more easily accessible information. Automation of the process has significantly reduced the time it takes to receive bonus information. Even before receiving a bonus, employees know the amount and can review the details of the calculation;
• Greater engagement: A transparent and digitized bonus system supports building a culture of high engagement and results orientation, which is particularly important in the biotech industry, where innovation and team engagement are critical to success.

Polpharma Biologics, now Rezon Bio as of 2024, also benefits from All for One Poland’s comprehensive support of the SAP Application Management Service (SAP AMS), used by some 1,200 end users.

The scope of support covers all key HR areas:

• Employee Central – human resources administration,
• Performance & Goals – administration of goals, performance and employee evaluation,
• Succession and Development – employee development, talent management and succession planning,
• Recruiting and Recruiting Marketing – administration of recruitment and career pages,
• Compensation – management of the fixed part of the salary,
• Variable Pay – Variable pay management,
• Onboarding – managing the process of induction and adaptation of new employees,
• Learning – training management,
• People Analytics – HR analytics and reporting.

With a consistent approach to the administration of the entire SuccessFactors environment in the hands of a single partner, Rezon Bio has gained stability throughout the process, efficient handling of ongoing requests, and the comfort of knowing that all modules are functioning in a coordinated and secure manner.

Rezon Bio is a European CDMO (contract development and manufacturing organization) specializing in the production of biologics in mammalian cell systems. The company operates from two state-of-the-art centers in Poland – in Gdansk and Warsaw-Duchnice – audited by the EMA and FDA. The company grew out of the legacy of Polpharma Biologics, whose biologic drugs were introduced to global markets.