Schaeffler accelerates, innovates, and transforms teamwork with Atlassian

Challenge: Schaeffler, a German automotive component manufacturer, has been facing steep competition; low margins; and the need for more efficiency, agility, and innovation to stay on top. A merger made it even more difficult to combine teams, systems, and ways of working. 

Solution: The enterprise is solving these challenges by migrating to a centralized System of Work using Atlassian as part of their digital transformation of processes and platforms.  

Impact: Schaeffler’s shift is already improving cost savings, collaboration, governance, compliance, system performance, and employee productivity.

Competition and acquisition spark the need for evolution

Consolidating tools, modernizing legacy systems, and merging two well-established, massive companies at the same time sounds like a recipe for chaos. But for Schaeffler, these were all part of a well-planned transformation – one that’s redefining how the company works and competes.

As a leading German manufacturer of high-precision automotive components, Schaeffler faces familiar industry challenges: intensifying competition, tight margins, and the constant need for greater efficiency, agility, and innovation. The merger with Vitesco Technologies helped address these issues, but also introduced new complexities with unifying teams, systems, and processes.

“Centralizing collaboration from multiple tools and deployments to one Atlassian Cloud System of Work has been a key ingredient to blending our two companies post-merger, connecting thousands of employees, and transforming Schaeffler into a future-ready force in the automotive industry,” says Tina Weber, a product owner on the Collaborative Tool Solutions Team. 

While Schaeffler’s journey is still in progress, they’re already starting to see the rewards of their work, including:

• Better collaboration across business and technical teams company-wide

• Streamlined governance

• Enhanced compliance

• Higher system performance and employee productivity 

• Future oriented way of working in Team, Task and Project Management

The Schaeffler team believes these benefits will only grow as more teams adopt Atlassian Cloud Enterprise, unlocking the organization’s full potential and paving the way for their next generation of innovation.

Method, Mindset, Tool: Schaeffler’s holistic approach to transformation

Schaeffler knew consolidating tools with one connected cloud platform would unlock efficiencies, cross-company collaboration, and use AI to empower teams to be more productive. But improving infrastructure was only one piece of the puzzle. Their team had a bigger goal: to modernize their culture and ways of working, not just their tooling – an approach they call “Method, Mindset, Tool,” or MMT. 

Throughout the transformation—from preparation and cleanup to migration, testing, and go-live—Schaeffler partnered closely with their Solution Partner, catworkx. This collaboration enabled dual licensing (running Atlassian Data Center and Cloud in parallel for business continuity), increased capacity, and accelerated the timeline, especially after the Vitesco merger made platform unification even more urgent.

One unified cloud platform, endless possibilities and capabilities

Schaeffler’s Atlassian user base has increased 10x since the migration began—and continues to grow. As more teams migrate to the Atlassian platform, they’re starting to see possibilities turn into realities.

“We have so many more capabilities with Atlassian Cloud Enterprise, which will help us do more with less. In fact, we’ve already started retiring redundant tools,” Tina says. These new capabilities have allowed Schaeffler to retire redundant tools.

Consolidation is not only freeing up even more time and budget, but also creating a single, connected System of Work that’s better for users, admins, and the business. For example, employees across the company are finding it easier to:

• Break down silos and unite teams across many departments, including IT, HR, procurement, branding, and sustainability

• Standardize governance 

• Stay compliant with better security, more data protection, streamlined reviews, and multi-vendor management 

• Stay in the flow, with fewer disruptions and less context-switching

• Work faster and smarter using unified data and Rovo's AI capabilities

Tina is noticing the difference in her team’s admin responsibilities too. “Migrating to Atlassian cloud is helping transform our Collaborative Tool Solutions Team from being a service provider to an enabler that supports our business colleagues and delivers more value using the right methods, mindset and tools.” 

Expanding Schaeffler’s System of Work for better, faster teamwork

Upgrading to Atlassian Cloud Enterprise is providing access to new features and tools helping Schaeffler’s teams work even more efficiently and effectively.  

Teamwork Collection to supercharge collaboration and productivity 

Jira and Confluence have been the backbone of collaboration at Schaeffler. With the addition of Loom through Teamwork Collection, Tina and her team are taking teamwork to a new level through AI-powered video and transcripts embedded directly in Confluence pages. “Teamwork Collection connects our teams and tools even more, which will fuel our collaboration and creativity,” Tina says. 

While Jira and Confluence were already widely used, Tina's team was pleasantly surprised by how business and technical teams quickly began leveraging Teamwork Collection's new cloud tools and features. Teams started using Jira Plans for cross-functional planning, held brainstorming sessions using Confluence whiteboards, and created quick, engaging video updates to host better, more efficient meetings. Tina says, “Loom helped us replace long emails and status meetings with concise videos that people actually watch.”

Rovo for working faster and smarter, not harder

Schaeffler has unlocked even more potential by adding Rovo to their platform. It has become a powerful new teammate in their Atlassian System of Work – helping teams find answers faster, spark new ideas, and automate everyday tasks. “Our teams are using Rovo to search across apps, summarize information, improve their writing, and speed up tedious tasks, like grouping ideas in Confluence whiteboards,” Tina reports. “They’re also eager to build custom agents with Rovo Studio that can automate processes and save even more time.”

Jira Product Discovery for speeding up the process from idea to impact

Expanding their use of Jira Product Discovery is helping Schaeffler capture, evaluate, and plan product improvements faster than ever before, then quickly move into delivery with Jira.  

Tina says, “Adding Jira Product Discovery to our Atlassian System of Work means we can manage product development from idea to delivery in one place. This will help us launch the most impactful products and features, faster.”

Destination: acceleration and innovation

Most enterprises would say evolving their mindset, methods, and tools is “impossible.” For Schaeffler, it was impossible alone but possible together.

By partnering with Atlassian and catworkx, Schaeffler’s teams are accelerating their transformation —building the methods, mindset and tools needed to drive innovation for the next 80 years and beyond.