{"id":125,"date":"2026-05-10T09:23:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T09:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forward-publishing.com\/?post_type=case_study&#038;p=125"},"modified":"2026-07-26T15:21:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T13:21:38","slug":"seamless-transition-digital-first-foundation","status":"publish","type":"case_study","link":"https:\/\/forward-publishing.com\/en\/case-study\/seamless-transition-digital-first-foundation\/","title":{"rendered":"Seamless transition. Digital-first foundation."},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-post-excerpt\"><p class=\"wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt\">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. <\/p><\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><strong>A Clear Brief, a Tight Timeline<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Given the tight timeline, the focus had to be on functionality.&#8221; That principle&nbsp;set&nbsp;the tone for how Berliner Verlag and Forward Publishing worked together, says Maarten Oestreich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Challenge: A Fresh Start Under Pressure<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When new owners took over, they&nbsp;didn&#8217;t&nbsp;want to lose any time: clear out the legacy systems and move the newsroom fully to digital-first. &#8220;We wanted a system that would let Berliner Verlag run fully digital production processes,&#8221; says Maarten Oestreich, Head of Engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Working closely with the publisher, Forward Publishing built a test environment and migrated Berliner Zeitung&#8217;s online presence to the new cloud system.&nbsp;Livingdocs&nbsp;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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;As part of our digital transformation, Forward Publishing set up a new production infrastructure at short notice.&#8221; Maarten Oestreich, Head of Engineering, Berliner Verlag<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><strong>What Changed<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":979,"template":"","class_list":["post-125","case_study","type-case_study","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Seamless transition. 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