Highlights of the Project
Berliner Verlag implements PEIQ's editorial system in just four weeks
In spring 2020, the Berliner Verlag decided to change its editorial system. Just four weeks after the start of the project, the first edition of the Berliner Zeitung was printed with the new system.
Jan Schmidt, Managing Director and Project Manager at Berliner Verlag, talks about why they chose PEIQ, and what made the project successful.
Jan Schmidt in interview
PEIQ: Mr. Schmidt, what led to the technology partnership between the Berliner Verlag and PEIQ?
Jan Schmidt: With the sale of Berliner Verlag, we left former corporate structures and completely repositioned ourselves. It was important to us, that our technology complexity remains manageable and flexible. That's why we rely on the SaaS solution in the cloud from PEIQ. This increases process efficiency, reduces costs and serves as a basis for free and creative work. In this way, we can guarantee independent journalism in turbulent times.
PEIQ: How was it even possible to change the editorial system in such a short time?
Jan Schmidt: It only worked with an agile, MVP-oriented (Minimum Viable Product) project approach. You have to make a clear commitment to temporarily taking on technical and organizational debt and ensure fault tolerance all the way up to top management. This has paid off. After just one week, we gained access to the first version of the system. Thanks to an agile project approach, we were able to locate the existing gaps piece by piece and print our first edition after just four weeks.
PEIQ: In addition to editorial production, you have also switched page planning, ad planning and make-up, and the commercial ad system to PEIQ. Why?
Jan Schmidt: This simplifies our technical complexity enormously. We save ourselves time-consuming interfaces between systems that have to be maintained and serviced by the providers. This makes it easier to reproduce errors and further optimize our cost structure.
PEIQ: Thank you very much.
Highlights of the project
1
With digital-first content efficiently to print product
Digital-first content is dragged and dropped onto the page. Intelligent templates insert formatting, elements, and markup in the right places in the layout, according to the design specifications for print.
2
Complete design relaunch implemented in just 5 days
After the system went live, a complete design relaunch of the Berliner Zeitung was implemented. Thanks to the use of intelligent templates, the number of sample page templates, for example, was reduced by about half.
3
Creative layout directly in the system
Layout changes can be made directly on the page. Due to extensive creative layout functions in the system (such as clipping or pixelation) it is hardly necessary to change to InDesign & Co.
4
All in one: page planning, ad planning/make-up and commercial ad system
Instead of a complex system landscape with numerous connected systems, PEIQ can be used to map an efficient workflow with few interfaces. This reduces technical complexity enormously and cuts costs.
Cost reduction through scalable cloud solution
Technical issues such as operation, monitoring, data protection or scaling do not have to be clarified by every publisher. Because PEIQ's editorial system already has the answers. With 15 years of experience in cloud services for hundreds of newspaper titles and 600 million page requests per month, every publisher benefits from greatly reduced costs and complexity.
Automated layout with assistance functions
Intelligent assistance functions automate the layout of individual articles, pages or entire sections. An algorithm calculates these based on intelligent templates, article metadata and complex layout rules. If required, manual post-processing is of course possible.