Success Story – Bauer Media Group

The challenge

Bauer Media wanted to tackle the biggest challenges: managing the three different languages more efficiently, unifying the different processes used in each of the three countries, and the ability to reuse content – something that was not possible before. To meet these challenges, the cultures, working styles, and habits of the three countries had to be united. Other aspects to consider were the different structures of the teams involved and the differences in knowledge levels.

Bauer's company size forced them to look for options that allowed a high degree of standardization in the construction and integration and in the day-to-day production and maintenance. Bauer expected that the training, briefing, and engagement of a large group of users from three different countries would be a major challenge. While that assumption was accurate, it turned out that this step was not just a challenge—it was also a huge success.

The goal

Bauer Media aimed to establish a central system for editorial workflows and digital asset management that works well for Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom – and enables and pushes collaboration between the countries. Centralized, obviously, but also easy to use and expand along with the company's growth. Besides meeting the aforementioned criteria, Bauer pushed to create a standardized framework in terms of functionality, user authorization, and structure – to meet the wants and needs of all three regions involved – that would also be able to run and accommodate daily operations in all three countries, making the lives of 1,600 users working on more than 260 publications, a whole lot easier.

Easily reusing content across regions was another important goal Bauer set to fulfill, mainly to lower costs and increase efficiency. Hence, Bauer Media initially sought a DAM system to centralize asset management. Progressive insight, through various workshops by a&f systems and WoodWing, pointed out that a simultaneous implementation of an editorial system would be more effective.

The solution

WoodWing offered the solution for Bauer Media's requirements by combining two core products (WoodWing Assets and WoodWing Studio) into one package.

The options provided by these two products were further extended through integrations with other systems. The benefits of combining two products go beyond the obvious advantage that both products come from one supplier and can enhance each other's functionalities; the combination of an editorial system and a DAM system covers the requirements of all countries involved. An additional bonus comes from WoodWing's standardized layout templates that are easy to work with and help save time in employees' daily schedules. A best-of-breed approach allowed a&f systems to replace previously used products and connect the new tools to other systems in the tech stack.

Since this was the first large-scale WoodWing Cloud project in Europe (based on the number of users, amount of content, and geographical extent), the help provided by A&F really made it a success.

The process

The project started in the summer of 2020 and was divided into several phases right from the get-go to migrate (segments of) publications to the new Global Publishing System (GPS, the editorial system environment) in manageable chunks – with WoodWing's products in the center and the integrated peripheral systems used for production around those. Despite each country having its basic requirements for the project, the methodologies used were consolidated and mapped into a single system.

The first step was to develop the interface for the transition from the previous to the new system, after which the old systems were gradually transitioned to WoodWing's production environment, which went live in autumn 2021. Workshops helped define standardized user groups and authorizations, and the establishment of a uniform technical structure for brands and layouts – so-called SmartTemplates, which are InDesign templates developed to make the production of the majority of magazines as simple and automated as possible – ensured a simple integration process and future use. Digital article structures and components were standardized for integration to maintain flexibility and allow easy reuse. The transition phase was completed by developing interfaces to Monday.com (planning) and Amendo (image optimization) and the gradual rollout of plugins for WoodWing Studio and WoodWing Assets.

While the initial plan followed a hybrid approach, the unforeseen constant stream of (too many) new tasks, requirements, and technical challenges turned out to be unmanageable due to sheer volume and complexity. The switch to a ‘classic’ DevOps sprint model for more control over workload and developments turned out to be the right choice. The practices, tools, and cultural philosophy included in the adjusted approach were designed to automate and integrate processes between software development and IT departments. The standardization of the workflow allows for a quick transition of developments into productive operations, which helps to motivate teams during long-running projects like this one.

The conclusion

The use of the aforementioned SmartTemplates made daily work significantly more efficient. Instead of using three support teams (one for every country), support is now one team working across all three countries – a result of the new, uniform way of working. In the same way, employees can also support each other across countries in case of problems. The project also helped further improve WoodWing Cloud, based on suggestions made continuously throughout the project. Within Bauer Media, collaboration between the different countries improved significantly due to the encouragement and low effort required to reuse content across countries.