The fischer group of companies from Walachtal near Stuttgart in Germany has standardized its worldwide websites with the Business Content Management System contentXXL. The corporate group encompasses four sectors – fischer fixing systems, fischer automotive systems, fischertechnik as well as fischer process consulting – and with local subsiduaries in 28 countries it is represented over almost the entire world. Initially for this large project the collective website of the fischer group and the fischer fixing systems division were transferred to contentXXL. From now on this will be used as the foundation for the websites of the local subsiduaries and the three other business sectors. The goal is to technically and optically standardize the whole website for the entire fisher group of companies.  Information can be distributed, exchanged and jointly shared (content sharing) with the use of a single platform for all websites. fischer realized this project itself.

The family business from Schwaben, with its inventions like the “Fischer Raw Plug” and the toy brand “fishertechnik”, is among the most famous and successful companies in Germany. Behind the name “fischer” is a worldwide active corporate group with 3,800 employees and a turnover of 545 million Euro in 2007. Driven by the goal to be a flexible, lean and extravagance free company, a worldwide system of websites will be opticially and technically optimized and standardized over the coming year. The fully Microsoft.NET based Content Management System contentXXL was chosen by fischer for this purpose, due to its range of features which predestined it for such a large project. On top of this it fits perfectly with fischer’s Microsoft dominated IT environment due to its .NET based technology.

From Waldachtal into the World
After relaunching the main page of the fischer group of companies with contentXXL, as well as the large fischer fixing systems division in the first quarter of 2008, all other local subsidiaries in 28 countries will gradually be carried over to contentXXL CMS. To do this one initially uses the content from the German and English homepages, translating and adapting it to suit the specific country. Additionally, every local subsidiary has the possibility to incorporate its own content. Thus the exchange and multiple use of data (content sharing) is easy because the content of all language versions is administered from a single platform and database.

“We are impressed by the capabilities of the CMS contentXXL. After the construction of the basic system (www.fischer.de) it is quick and easy to realise additional country specific websites”, rejoices Stefan Barth, team leader e-communications and responsible for web development and web design.“ With contentXXL we have at hand a highly efficient instrument to supply information to our external and internal customers. Our local subsiduaries can now directly maintain their websites and in this way both create country specific content as well as access already existing pages from other local subsiduaries. Thereby proving that content sharing offered by contentXXL is very effective.”

Through the choice of other local subsiduaries the concept of collective use of information is even more noticeable. Initially the language versions used for several countries are going to be implemented. The pages of the French subsidiary can, virtually by the press of a button, also be used in Belgium, the Spanish in Argentina and the Portuguese ones in Brasil.

Following this the web pages of the three other company sectors (fischertechnik, automotive systems and fischer process consulting) will be transfered to contentXXL CMS. At this juncture the project fischertechnik, with a shop system and many interactive functions, poses a special challenge for the team of Stefan Barth. Together with his colleague Michael Müller – responsible for the technical development and application programming – this and all the local projects from the local subsidiaries will be realized without outside help.