The double cloud migration at Hermes Einrichtungs Service (HES for short) ensures process optimization at the highest level. The market leader for delivery in 2-man handling has migrated with its Jira and Confluence instances to the Atlassian Cloud. In doing so, HES relied on the Atlassian Enterprise licenses of the Otto Group, to which the logistics company belongs, and with Jodocus on the same Atlassian Solution Partner. In terms of both license management and data protection, it was possible to find particularly efficient ways for cloud migration due to the group structure.
With more than seven million shipments delivered in 2021 sent from the more than 100 delivery depots in Germany, Austria, France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland: the 2-man handling of Hermes Einrichtungs Service has established itself as the market leader for the distribution of furniture, large appliances and other heavy or large shipments. More than 10,000 employees, including contractors, work for the company every day – from goods handling and delivery to ready-to-live-in assembly, expert repair, and returns management.
Given the high number of deliveries and other services, good and transparent communication and cooperation based on trust are indispensable. This applies in particular to the daily exchange within the teams and the timely and targeted processing of tasks. The smooth linking of essential business processes through software solutions plays a decisive role – for perfect customer service as well as optimal internal communication. It is crucial that the software is optimally adapted to the company's processes – only then it can simplify daily work and be used safely by users. Hermes Einrichtungs Service had already worked on the use of such software solutions at an early stage, relying on Atlassian products.
Hermes Einrichtungs Service GmbH & Co. KG is responsible for the two-man handling business segment within the Hermes group and thus for all processes relating to the delivery and assembly of furniture, large electrical appliances and other bulky goods. The company is based in Löhne, North Rhine-Westphalia. From there, four main handling bases in Germany and Poland as well as the flow of goods and services from around 70 depots in Germany and abroad are controlled. As the market leader in the distribution of furniture and large appliances, Hermes Einrichtungs Service delivers to around seven million private households every year.
Industrie: Logistics
Employees: 250+
Location: Löhne, Germany
Website: hermesworld.com
The solution for the digital organization of business processes and workflows, as well as for knowledge management, had already been successfully used by HES in the noughties. For example, the logistics company has been using Jira since 2006 to map and optimize its ITSM processes. In 2009, Atlassian's enterprise wiki solution Confluence was implemented, which serves HES as a digital knowledge database as well as an intranet. Both server systems grew iteratively with the company, which saw another major expansion due to the increase in shipments, especially during the Corona pandemic.
tlassian tools provided the interfaces for the growing volume of communication and processes in the IT and service teams at HES. Particularly for collaboration during mobile work, they were essential for cross-team as well as intra-team exchange. However, when the licenses for Jira expired at the end of 2021 and for Confluence at the beginning of 2022, two important decisions had to be made for the software strategy: Will the company continue to rely on Atlassian products in the future? And does one go along with the intended path of the software developer to the cloud?
The fact is: From 2024, Atlassian will only support the cloud versions of its products. Server versions have not been supported since the beginning of 2021, and future support for the significantly more expensive data center option is also up in the air. For Florian Schmidt, Application Service Manager at HES, the situation was clear after the expiration of HES's server licenses: "We were already very satisfied with Jira and Confluence in the server version. We wanted to build on this and saw the cloud strategy as the most promising software solution for the future."
Hermes Einrichtungs Service is thus also following the strategy of the Otto Group, to which the logistics company belongs. The latter acquired the Cloud Enterprise package in March 2021 in order to migrate securely to the cloud with its Atlassian instances. The special feature of the Enterprise package is its adherence to EBA and BaFin outsourcing regulations as well as the latest compliance standards. This way, Atlassian ensures an official DSGVO-compliant use of its Enterprise Cloud products.
However, not only the Otto Group but also its subsidiaries – in this case, the Hermes Einrichtungs Service – benefit from the Enterprise package, especially on the topic of data protection through license transfer. So HES was also able to use Cloud Enterprise licenses for the switch to the Atlassian Cloud.
"The option of obtaining DSGVO-compliant Cloud Enterprise licenses via the Otto Group completely cut through the data protection issue. This allowed us to simply set the data location to Germany and focus on the technical migration of our Jira and Confluence instances. In addition, the data security and thus the security of all data through technical solutions in the cloud is also satisfactory," Florian Schmidt summarizes. When selecting the Atlassian Solution Partner – the Atlassian product experts who support, among other things, product configuration, solution customization, and implementation of Atlassian tools in the cloud – HES relied on the same service provider as the Otto Group. "We knew that the Otto Group had already worked successfully with Jodocus and, after clear recommendation, the decision was easy to also rely on Jodocus' cloud experts," says Florian Schmidt. In addition to the efficient license management coordinated by Jodocus, a team was formed for the first joint task at HES: the cloud migration of the Jira instances within two months.
Due to the expiration of server licenses, the cloud migration of Jira had to be completed by November 30, 2021. Therefore, joint preparations for the first of two cloud migrations at HES started at the end of September 2021. "The better you prepare and test a migration, the better the result afterward for the live migration. Through the UAT, the User Acceptance Test, we were able to record the feedback of the application testers at HES on the cloud version of Jira in advance and take it into account during the migration," says Tim Bossen, Migration Manager at Jodocus, describing an important factor for the successful migration.
A major challenge in the change from Jira Server to Jira Cloud was the adoption of the familiar workflow for customer management at HES. Although the market leader in 2-man handling maps this with Jira, it does not use Jira Service Management (JSM) for passing on tasks (issues), but rather the app "E-Mail this issue". In order to make the move to the cloud as easy as possible for all service employees – in terms of user experience – HES decided not to switch to JSM and rather keep the old solution for the time being. But because there was no direct migration path for the app, Jodocus' migration experts manually rebuilt all configurations of the app in the cloud. Despite not having the opportunity to test the app's configuration beforehand, this part of the cloud migration also went successfully. "Overall, it was the kind of migration you want: everything was there, the timing was right, and we were able to continue working 1-to-1," Florian Schmidt summarizes with satisfaction. And that's how things should continue together.
As a well-coordinated team, the cloud migration of the Confluence instance from Hermes Einrichtungs Service began in the spring of 2022. The big advantage was that thanks to the previous migration of Jira, precautions had already been taken to facilitate the migration of Confluence. These included, for example, cleaning up users, storing mail addresses, and assigning admin accounts. In addition, the entire Confluence instance could be reviewed and cleaned up as part of the cloud migration. For example, archives were created for old pages and data sets were sorted.
"We also performed a very clean cloud migration for Confluence with the help of Jodocus. This means that we can now benefit from the advantages of the cloud for both Atlassian tools, Jira and Confluence," reports Florian Schmidt. Moreover, HES is pleased with its new Confluence start page, which Jodocus designed as a user-friendly entry point to the intranet or corporate wiki.
The switch from Server to Cloud Enterprise has decisive advantages for HES, not only in terms of data security and data protection. The logistics company also benefits from significantly lower maintenance costs. Add-ons and further developments are automatically patched in the cloud and test environments can be created quickly and easily. Florian Schmidt already knows how to use the time gained: "We can now adapt the system even better to us and our processes. For example, we can develop and set up automations in Jira that were not possible in this form on the server before." Also, workflows and processes can be scaled even better in the cloud and adapted to the company's growth.
Another very crucial benefit of the cloud, which would never have been feasible for HES in the server version without having to set up a complex DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) – a specially controlled network that sits as a security zone between the external network (internet) and the internal network: The cloud enables direct collaboration in the tools with third parties. As a result, HES can now collaborate with customers and partners on joint roadmaps and projects. For example, the market leader in 2-man handling is currently developing a successor solution for its depot logistics system with third-party companies directly in Jira.
From licensing to technical implementation, both cloud migrations at Hermes Einrichtungs Service were a complete success. An elementary factor in the smooth migrations was, above all, the good cooperation between the HES development team and the Atlassian cloud experts at Jodocus. "Jodocus was not just an on-site service provider, but we really formed a team. This meant that we always gave each other our opinions openly and honestly, which led to clear communication and ultimately the rapid successful project collaboration," confirms Florian Schmidt.
HES would also like to optimize and individualize its software solutions in the future. Another small project is already underway in which the cloud experts from Jodocus are contributing their know-how for agile software development. This is about developing an alternative to an app by intelligently chaining and applying Jira functions. The goal is an enormous saving in licensing costs for a corresponding app without having to compromise on functionality.
For further optimization of customer management, Atlassian's Jira Service Management is under discussion. HES had undoubtedly found the right Atlassian solution partner for the implementation of its third major project in Jodocus.
