Aschendorff Medien replaced a fragmented legacy environment with a modular publishing platform and transformed its entire infrastructure in just six months.
The Lego Model in Practice
The management team calls its approach a “Lego model”: modular components that snap together through shared standards, so any single piece can be replaced without touching the rest.
The Challenge: Fragmented Systems, Growing Pressure
Cloud had overtaken on-premise hosting on both performance and cost. For Aschendorff Medien, that settled it: the old system was no longer something to build a digital future on. So leadership decided to start over from scratch, and to move fast.
“We realized that some things are just better handled by specialists,” says Maximilian Degenkolbe, Head of Digital News Products. “We’re a media company. That’s what we do best. IT is what IT companies do best.” After weighing its options, Aschendorff chose Forward Publishing as its technology partner. The CMS, web delivery, paywall, and single sign-on were all replaced by one coordinated, modular stack. Today, newsrooms work digital-first, and content flows automatically to every channel, digital and print.
“From first planning to go-live took six months. The actual build took four.” Maximilian Degenkolbe, Head of Digital News Products, Aschendorff Medien
What Changed
The newsroom felt the difference right away. “We can do a lot more without spending any more time on it,” says Degenkolbe. Standardized, automated distribution reshaped how the team works: real-time collaboration, full edit histories, easy metadata tagging, fast publishing, and newsletters sent straight from the CMS. The newsroom was on board from day one.
With less to maintain day to day, the team has room to think bigger. Time once spent on product management and operations now goes into editorial development and new projects. “Overall, we’re producing more high-quality content, and faster,” Degenkolbe says. The numbers bear it out: more subscribers, stronger revenue, and firm footing for the next stage of its digital transformation.
