Scalable Processes, Higher Efficiency, and Strategic Future-Readiness at Dehner

From Manual Processes to Smart Automation – Dehner's Path to Success

Europe’s largest garden center group, Dehner, stands for tradition, innovation, and sustainable growth. With over 135 stores in Germany and Austria and over 5,500 employees, the company places the highest value on quality and continuous improvement.

The increasing digitalization posed a central challenge for Dehner: How can IT processes be optimized to keep pace with company growth without tying up additional personnel resources?

To meet these requirements in the IT area as well, Dehner decided to comprehensively automate its internal IT processes. The goal was to reduce manual workflows, increase the scalability of the IT landscape, and network existing systems more efficiently.

This success story shows how Dehner saved time and resources through strategic automation while improving IT security and compliance.

About the company

Germany

Retail

135 Locations

>5.500 Employees

Ecosystem

Microsoft 365

Active Directory

SAP

Matrix42

Challenge

Manual Processes and Limited Scalability

With the company’s continuous growth and a rising number of IT requests, the focus shifted to how IT-supported processes could be made even more efficient and future-proof.

One of the core areas was onboarding and offboarding new employees. While the IT administration already relied on proven workflows, it aimed to make them more efficient and scalable, freeing up capacity for strategic IT initiatives.

The main challenges: 

• Structured user management: Up to 20 minutes per user were required to set up new accounts in Active Directory, M365, and Exchange. With up to 30 new hires per week, this added up to more than 12 hours of work time weekly.  
• Efficient management of PowerShell scripts:  With more than 300 scripts, the company had a powerful automation foundation. Central control of these processes allowed to improve reusability and accelerate operations even further.
• Enhanced compliance and process security: Transparent and traceable script handling was essential to ensure audit readiness and reduce manual interventions. 

The targeted expansion of automation and standardization of IT workflows was intended not only to relieve the IT department but also to create a basis for future-proof, scalable processes that would support the company in the long term. At the same time, the company was looking for a solution to simplify these processes and make them usable for the entire group of companies.

Goals

Making IT Processes More Efficient and Future-Proof

To keep pace with ongoing business growth, Dehner aimed to develop further and sustainably optimize its IT-supported processes.

Requirements for the new solution

It was essential to introduce a centralized, scalable automation solution that would achieve the following improvements:

• Reduction of manual tasks, allowing IT resources to focus on strategic initiatives.  
• Increased compliance and IT security through more transparent and auditable processes. 
• Optimization of access rights management, enabling more efficient and transparent control of system access. 
• Full version control and documentation of all scripts to improve traceability and security.
• Implementation of quality assurance mechanisms that automatically detect inconsistencies, trigger escalations, and ensure real-time compliance.

These measures were designed to simplify administration, increase transparency, and reduce error rates - laying the groundwork for digital innovation and scalability.

Solution

IT Automation as a Strategic Lever for Efficiency and Compliance

Automation led to concrete improvements in efficiency, security, and strategic IT alignment. In addition to measurable time savings, the solution enabled a stronger focus on innovation projects and long-term IT compliance.

Core measures of the automation initiative:

• Replacement of the old Windows job server with a modern automation platform for secure management and standardization of PowerShell scripts and permissions.  
• Automation of onboarding and offboarding processes, reducing repetitive tasks and improving scalability. 
• Extension of SAP SuccessFactors integration using ScriptRunner to fill existing automation gaps in permission management and HR processes. 
• Integration of Matrix42 to optimize IT service management and leverage the comprehensive ScriptRunner widget functions, enabling automation processes to be embedded directly into existing applications and enhancing ease of use for employees.

After successfully implementing the automation solution, Dehner saw significant improvements in IT administration and strategic focus. In addition to substantially reducing manual tasks, the company benefited from more efficient processes, enhanced compliance, and greater IT innovation capacity.

Measurable success:

• 75% faster onboarding processes → Processing time decreased from 20 to 5 minutes per employee, saving over 500 working hours annually.
• Elimination of one full-time position, as IT administrators no longer need to handle repetitive routine tasks.
• Improved IT security and compliance, with all scripts now documented in an audit-proof manner, centrally managed and protected against manipulation. Full traceability simplifies internal and external audits, as all IT processes are now transparently logged.
• SAP SuccessFactors initially covered only 40% of the required processes, which ScriptRunner could fully extend to 100%.
• Enhanced capacity for innovation, as IT staff can now focus on digital projects and process optimization instead of repetitive tasks.

By implementing these measures, Dehner established an efficient, future-ready IT architecture that relieved the IT administration and enabled strategic innovation initiatives.

Outlook

Automation as a Cultural Pillar of IT Strategy

Implementing the automation solution was not just a technical improvement for Dehner but a strategic decision that went far beyond the IT department. Notably, the organization has embraced automation as part of its culture.

Next steps in Dehner’s IT transformation:

• End-to-end automation of permission processes to eliminate manual interventions entirely. 
• Expansion of the automation infrastructure to establish a dedicated test environment for new automation workflows and gain long-term flexibility. 
• Enhancement of self-service capabilities to further reduce manual IT requests. 

Thanks to the success of these initial measures, automation will be expanded into additional business areas. The IT department will increasingly focus on cross-process digitalization and intelligent workflows to make the company even more efficient.

Conclusion

IT Automation as the Foundation for Sustainable Efficiency 

Dehner’s automation of IT processes demonstrates that efficient IT operations reduce costs and make the entire organization more agile, secure, and innovation-driven.

The three key takeaways from the implementation:

• Strategic IT automation boosts efficiency and improves compliance and IT security. 
• The IT department is relieved of manual processes and can focus more on digital innovation projects. 
• Dehner embraces automation as a technical solution and a company-wide concept that enhances scalability and strategic planning over the long term.

Due to the success of the measures taken so far, automation will be extended to other areas of the company in the future. The IT department will increasingly focus on cross-process digitalization and intelligent workflows to make the company even more efficient. 

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