DuMont delights employees with news channel

Delivering relevant content amid a connected society
As a leading media company in Germany, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger Medien, DuMont’s recently rebranded Cologne media publisher, has a history of more than 400 years and creates relevant content for a networked society. While information distribution is a primary objective, technological development, innovation, and progress are central to its history and ethos.

With impressive experience in publishing and information distribution, DuMont knows a thing or two about delivering tailored content to customers. Headquartered in Cologne and with offices across eight countries, it currently employs around 2,600 people. Based on the three business pillars ‘Regional Media’, ‘Business Information’, and ‘Marketing Technologies’, the effective distribution of customized information to relevant target groups remains at the core of the organization.

Recalibrating communications
Due to the technical limitations of the old intranet many desired functions, including a format that is also available on a mobile phone and, for example, notifies the user of important company news via push notifications, were not available.

The company was keen that its commitment to technological innovation and the delivery of relevant information be mirrored internally. A lack of cohesion and connectivity due to legacy systems was creating a more difficult process of digitization.

Staff had to search multiple sources to find information and support, and access was only available in a browser format. Moreover, not all employees under the DuMont umbrella had access to corporate information. This not only led to media disruptions, but it also meant that some employees could not be fully informed. “On our journey of bringing content to customers via new business models, it is important to provide our employees with relevant content as well,” says Jörg Bartke, DuMont Chief Architect.

Restricted remote access—especially in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw staff locked down and expected to work from home intermittently—meant employees without access to the internal network via VPN were not as well informed as they otherwise might have been. Access to internal communication channels were limited to those on company networks. When out of the office, with no wired connection, the employees had no access to the central information platform of DuMont.

Unified services and information stream
Having implemented ServiceNow technologies, the company now has a one-stop-shop for providing internal digital services, accessible on any device, 24/7, for its 2,600-strong workforce, connected across 30 sites. The Now Platform supports a centrally managed, modern, scalable, digital experience for end-users, with a clear, user-friendly interface. Two central script libraries host permission data for individual user accounts. Since the launch of the new portal, 350 articles have been accessed by 2,200 consumers.

ServiceNow App Engine enabled DuMont to build and deploy ‘Insights’, a mobile application delivering curated company news to staff—with group targeting capabilities. This cultivates a shared understanding of what is important to the company and what is happening internally—connecting staff wherever they are. It also serves as a forum where collaboration can flourish. Content is masterfully structured and delivered, with full text search across the whole content base and an intuitive UI directing users through carousel content categories. Links to corporate services are also available via a search function for staff members, and an option for chronological content display. This seamless content delivery means more exposure to customers: “It was our advertising tool to get information and knowledge to every customer,” says Jörg. 

The Insights app transforms end-users’ devices into a mobile information hub, accessible to all, wherever, whenever. Via push notifications users can now be alerted to important company news on their mobile phones. Crucially, embedded within Insights is a link to DuMont’s new IT service and support portal, powered by ServiceNow IT Service Management Pro. Delivering IT support via self-directed solution management, the portal frees up IT staff to work on less repetitive, higher-value tasks. The creation of corporate news has been standardized, simplified, and thus made accessible to a larger number of writers with less necessary technical knowledge. Chat bots using Virtual Agent provide resilient, always-on IT services to deflect ticket handling away from IT staff.

“It is not only a news app, but you can also open up an incident, you can see which asset you have. You can read knowledge base articles, and you can issue a service request,” says Jörg.

With ServiceNow products, DuMont is looking forward to the next 400 years of content delivery mastery, now both internally and externally.

“Working with ServiceNow is a journey. Through our news app ‘Insights’ we were able to demonstrate how powerful we are in the digitalization of business processes, thanks to ServiceNow. Now, everybody knows what ServiceNow can do for them, and we have the attention of our stakeholders, so we have the chance to build more with ServiceNow in the future,” concludes Jörg.

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