Success Story – Der Spiegel

The challenge

As part of project ‘Orange’, the previously independent print and online editorial departments were merged into one editorial team to make their production processes more efficient. The most important steps have already been taken: the editorial departments now work under one main editorial team and with joint management. The employees write and produce content for the website SPIEGEL.de and for the print version of DER SPIEGEL.

The merger has also been realized at the level of production processes – in the ‘Workflows + Systems’ project. In the future, around 800 employees will work in joint systems. Content will be produced according to the ‘story first’ principle, meaning that stories will be made channel-neutral, suitable for routing to both digital and print channels. All editorial systems have been updated as part of this conversion.

For the technical implementation, the SPIEGEL Group worked closely with Diamond WoodWing partner, a&f systems.

The evaluation

DER SPIEGEL was already using WoodWing Assets as the central image management system for its existing digital content production system – Polygon – using an internally built integration.

Before the first phase of the ‘Workflows + Systems’ project began in 2019, the entire WoodWing system landscape was consolidated and set up with a new hosting partner. At that point, a&f systems took over responsibility for 24/7 operations.

Although DER SPIEGEL's digital content production system already offered all the capabilities to meet the dynamic requirements of the digital landscape, it still had to be upgraded to meet print-related requirements. This required a perfectly coordinated workflow between different systems.

a&f systems knew that WoodWing Studio offers this by default, including numerous connection and integration options. Therefore, WoodWing Studio was a natural choice for the SPIEGEL Group.

The implementation

SPIEGEL Tech Lab, a SPIEGEL Group company, was the central unit responsible for developing Polygon, the existing digital content production system.

To develop and expand the functionality of this system, DER SPIEGEL and a&f systems set up a pilot environment to establish future workflows, present them to staff, assess their effectiveness, and refine them before implementation.

DER SPIEGEL then developed a new end-to-end process that covered every stage of print and online production: from editorial planning and creation to job management, issue scheduling, and page delivery and printing. WoodWing Studio was used for all print publications and was tightly integrated with the existing Polygon system..

We are happy to have a partner like a&f systems on our side. The project is complex and has many requirements. A large number of concepts had to be developed. We are very satisfied with the jointly developed workflow.

Alexander Thiel – Chief Editorial Systems and Workflows at the SPIEGEL Group

Extensive training sessions took place in the second quarter of 2021. Around 800 employees were instructed in the new workflows and tools. When the new system went live at the end of the summer, employees received intensive support to facilitate the transition to the new way of working.

The following step was the migration of all SPIEGEL Group publications to WoodWing Studio.

Results and benefits

• A future-proof system in which DER SPIEGEL's digital production system is closely integrated with WoodWing Studio for printed publications.
• Shorter time-to-market thanks to process automation and optimization.
• A solution ready for new client requirements.