Hubert Burda Media: A digital workplace to benefit from diversity

Burda wanted to move from their in-house intranet, which needed to be refreshed and enhanced with new functionalities to better align its international workforce. After a 6-months project to launch their LumApps intranet, oneBurda, they have fully integrated their productivity stack, unified communications and fostered interactions, extended access to frontliners via the mobile app, and secured the direction they want their intranet to take in the future.

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Elle, HolidayCheck, Focus, Cyberport, Saveur: ever heard of these brands? Founded in 1903, the German group Hubert Burda Media (or simply Burda) is one of Europe’s leading media companies, with more than 500 brands. With (journalistic) content as the very foundation of their work and value creation process, their aim is to offer consumers around the world “reliable information, helpful services and great entertainment”. Burda combines traditional publishing with digital innovation and is invested in digital business models like the professional networking platform Xing, the well-known second-hand goods sales platform Vinted or the German AI start-up Aleph Alpha.

Employees:

10,500+

Services:

Internal Communications

Industries:

Media and Entertainment

Telecommunication

Locations :

19 countries, 11 profit centers

The Challenge

Hubert Burda Media, a company with over 500 brands worldwide, operates in a very decentralized way. The divisions – also called profit centers – have a lot of entrepreneurial & cultural independence, making the company as a whole innovative and diverse, yet somewhat fragmented.

They came to LumApps with a simple goal: to improve communication and unity among their widely spread-out staff, creating a harmonized employee experience that encourages teamwork and networking. The challenge was to maintain the autonomy of each profit center, with their unique background, culture, and business model, while still promoting collaboration and innovation across the board.

Additionally, Burda's Corporate Communications team emphasized the need for a straightforward yet powerful solution to meet the needs of their demanding workforce, which includes many platform managers and design experts. They highlighted the importance of features like:

easy and intuitive Medium-style article sharing and interaction
plug-and-play community creation
seamless mobile experience to ensure accessibility and future-proofing

oneBurda should feel as intuitive as a Social Media platform !

Lukas Koschnitzke

Head of Corporate Channels at Hubert Burda Medi

The Solution

Up until 2022, Burda was using an in-house Intranet, which needed a new look and feel, enhanced functionalities, and better alignment with its international workforce. They decided to create oneBurda to provide one platform for all their employees worldwide, with an extended access, particularly to frontliners such as those working in printing facilities, and better integrations with widely used productivity stacks like Microsoft 365.

After considering different options, LumApps stood out as Burda's preferred choice because of its social and technical strengths, including:

Intuitiveness

Easy-to-use intuitive platform for quick adoption, reducing the need for extensive training sessions.

Integration with tool stack

Seamless integration with Microsoft 365 and other applications to consolidate employees’ tools and resources.

Successful POC

Successful proof of concept meeting their expectations, influenced also by positive feedback they received from other LumApps customers.

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Mobile-first approach

Mobile-friendly capabilities to facilitate frontline staff onboarding and boost global adoption.

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Multi-tenant support

Ability to integrate multiple tenants, allowing for a centralized communication for Burda while supporting local needs thanks to private subsites for profit centers and brands.

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Launched in June 2023, their intranet oneBurda was launched after six months of intense collaborative efforts by a cross-functional team, composed of the Corporate Development team as project lead, together with Corporate Comms, IT and HR. oneBurda now supports the group’s diverse employee base throughout their lifecycle within the company, covering all aspects from onboarding, learning and development, internal mobility, communications, networking, or people and culture.

Outside people are jealous when I show the the oneBurda app !

Executive

Hubert Burda Media

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Key use cases

Fostering social interactions

At the heart of oneBurda are the Spaces, which serve as a social hub, fostering collaboration among countries, brands and individuals within the company’s diverse community. While most Spaces are managed independently by different departments for static information, they are also a strong pillar of global corporate culture in that they encourage the sharing of news and best practices, as well as open interaction on a global scale. It’s the place where innovation thrives, allowing anyone to comment or post on one unified feed: the oneWall.

The oneWall concept allows every user to express themself, sharing topics such as holiday memories, CEO messages, tool inquiries, or project updates. It creates a communication hub for all employees globally, where they can discuss work-related matters as well as personal interests like hobbies.

Social IS mobile!

The team immediately decided to provide a mobile app to match the social aspect of their platform and ensure all users could connect easily from anywhere. The main reason was to allow frontline workers to connect, like printing facility staff without business emails, who can now join by scanning a QR code. And this simplicity led to a 80% adoption rate on mobile! The app also meets the needs of CEOs and management teams who primarily use a mobile device to access the platform.

All business apps in one place

The Microsoft 365 integration provides easy access to all of Burda's business tools — SharePoint, Teams, Office, and Outlook — from one place. This integration in oneBurda enables both communication and collaboration in a single environment, enhancing team productivity by letting users stick with the tools they already know, rather than making them switch to something new. For instance, users can drop a Teams note directly through oneBurda.

AI for productivity

With the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) impacting both business and daily life, Burda's teams wanted to harness its potential for the benefit of their employees, and to stay at the cutting edge of innovation. Thus, they integrated an AI chatbot, oneAi, based on ChatGPT, directly into oneBurda. Accessible with just one click, users can leverage its functionalities, perform programming tasks, or improve product features. This integration boosts employee productivity and efficiency by offering intelligent and contextually relevant interactions seamlessly within the social platform.