About DSL

Operators first. Advisors second.

Design Studio Lab (DSL) is a digital transformation studio. Our experience comes from running the change inside real, complex businesses — not from a consulting playbook.

Bala Mathivanan, Founder & Principal Consultant of Design Studio Lab
Bala Mathivanan
Founder & Principal Consultant
Kent, UK
PRINCE2® · MBCS

Design Studio Lab was founded by Bala Mathivanan, who has spent more than fifteen years leading technology at board level inside multi-site, international businesses — carrying the budget, owning the systems, and shipping the change. That experience spans board-level technology leadership across multi-site international groups: post-acquisition integration of four entities across the UK, USA, Malaysia and India — with a custom Azure cloud platform designed and deployed as the single enquiry-to-order workflow — SAP Business One across multiple companies, country-specific e-invoicing compliance, Azure Virtual Desktop, and zero-trust security taken through to ISO 27001 preparation, all inside ISO 9001-certified, export-sensitive environments. Before that, he directed IT for multi-company retail groups in the North West — including a four-company fashion group with £40m+ combined turnover — implementing SAP Business One, launching e-commerce platforms on Magento and Shopify, and scaling a newly acquired marketplace operation to 2,000 orders a day at 99.8% data accuracy. We bring that operator's instinct to your business: not a framework from a textbook, but someone who has stood in the middle of a merger, a live ERP and an AI rollout and made them work together. The goal is always the same: take your operation to its next level, and leave your team able to keep it there.

Track record

Change delivered, not just designed.

A sample of the work behind DSL — engagements led by our founder inside multinational operations.

500,000+

Half a million parcels, integrated

Designed and ran the systems integration behind a logistics operation moving over 500,000 parcels a year — connecting ordering, fulfilment and finance into one flow.

Distribution & logisticsSystems integration
4 countries

Two groups, one operation

Led post-acquisition integration across two groups in the UK, USA, Malaysia and India — designing and deploying a custom Azure cloud RFQ platform as the single enquiry-to-order workflow, replacing siloed legacy systems group-wide.

M&A integrationCloud platform
2 → 1

Two ERPs, one view

Unified separate SAP Business One instances for cross-border reporting, giving leadership a single, reliable picture of the group.

SAP Business OneCross-border reporting
AI live

AI adoption in production

Delivered a company-wide AI adoption and governance programme — from strategy through to live tooling used by staff, safely.

AI governanceCompany-wide rollout
£40m+ group

Four companies, one IT estate

Directed IT across a four-company fashion group with £40m+ combined turnover for nine years — owning the budget, implementing SAP Business One and the e-commerce platforms the group traded on.

Retail & e-commerceIT leadership
5 sites

One network, three countries

Built the infrastructure connecting five sites across the UK, US and Germany — servers, networking, firewalls and site-to-site VPN — delivering 99.99% uptime and a head-office relocation with zero business disruption.

InfrastructureMulti-site
2,000/day

Marketplace orders, automated

Integrated SAP Business One with Amazon, eBay and daily-deal marketplaces to run up to 2,000 orders a day across five countries — 99.8% data accuracy, 100+ hours of manual processing removed every week.

E-commerce integrationSAP B1
35% faster

Board reporting, accelerated

Power BI and Crystal Reports dashboards giving senior leadership real-time operational and financial analytics — cutting the monthly reporting cycle by 35%.

Business intelligencePower BI
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Work with DSL.

Thirty minutes, no obligation: tell us where your operation is today, and we'll tell you what we'd do first.