Berliner Verlag established a modern publishing infrastructure, completed a seamless transition, reduced operational costs, and laid the groundwork for a new generation of digital products.
A Clear Brief, a Tight Timeline
“Given the tight timeline, the focus had to be on functionality.” That principle set the tone for how Berliner Verlag and Forward Publishing worked together, says Maarten Oestreich.
The Challenge: A Fresh Start Under Pressure
When new owners took over, they didn’t want to lose any time: clear out the legacy systems and move the newsroom fully to digital-first. “We wanted a system that would let Berliner Verlag run fully digital production processes,” says Maarten Oestreich, Head of Engineering.
Working closely with the publisher, Forward Publishing built a test environment and migrated Berliner Zeitung’s online presence to the new cloud system. Livingdocs became the collaborative headless CMS behind the newsroom. Sternwald added efficient asset management. New mobile and desktop frontends, plus a paywall and subscription system, completed the stack.
“As part of our digital transformation, Forward Publishing set up a new production infrastructure at short notice.” Maarten Oestreich, Head of Engineering, Berliner Verlag
What Changed
The transition went exactly as planned. Editorial teams kept working without interruption, and existing articles kept all their SEO visibility. The collaborative system lets editors work from anywhere, and multi-channel distribution runs without restrictions.
The switch cut IT spending right away, with substantial savings over the old infrastructure. That freed-up budget went into the next phase of the digital strategy: expanding the premium offering, adding an audio read-aloud feature, and building new digital products. Berliner Verlag has reached its original goal of working digital-first and keeps building from there.
