For more than 20 years, this medium-sized town an hour from Stuttgart has been engaged in a digital transformation alongside Axians Infoma, which implemented customised technical solutions and optimised workflows.
With around 66,000 inhabitants, Aalen is a medium-sized German town an hour’s drive east of Stuttgart, which has long had lofty digital ambitions. With support from the federal Smart City programme, it has become a true digital pioneer. Over more than 20 years, the town has forged a partnership with the VINCI Energies business unit Axians Infoma in support of its digital transition.
This partnership began in 2003, when the town of Aalen decided to implement its own financial system. This meant migrating from a conventional computing centre-based model to an innovative software solution installed on its own servers. This was a future-oriented decision, which required the rapid acquisition of new in-house expertise.
Over the years, there have been several far-reaching digital projects, such as the introduction of double-entry bookkeeping and digital invoicing. The latter was a key step, enabling the town to save many weeks of work every year and build the foundation for the digital projects to follow.
The most recent stage on this digital journey was the adoption of the Infoma AppSpace platform. Felix Ettwein, an IT consultant and process management team leader at Axians Informa, explains: “It’s an open system comparable to the iPhone iOS that allows the integration of numerous applications.”
The biggest challenge was to harmonise working methods across the town’s various services.
From online payments for residents to municipal room bookings, the system’s modular design offers customised software solutions to meet the town’s different needs. As the primary objective of AppSpace was to provide decentralised billing, Axians Infoma planned a progressive migration of different specialist applications that had previously been integrated into the main financial package. This offered easy-to-learn functionality and time savings for public employees, with applications specifically tailored to their tasks.
Focus on people and processes
As the partnership with the town of Aalen illustrates, in addition to the development and maintenance of solutions, Axians Infoma provides support, training and advice. “Now the town is using our finance software and AppSpace platform, but in the beginning, no one really knew how to use it. And each person was working in a different way,” recalls Felix Ettwein.
The biggest challenge was to harmonise working methods across the town’s various services, especially the finance department and building management department.
To help local authorities manage their digitalisation in a structured way, his team developed a tailored approach with the focus on process design and agile project management methodology. They wanted to be able to view and optimise workflows, with and without software.
“We are a software company, and my team and I do take a different approach with the customer,” says Felix Ettwein. The message is clear: technology can be helpful, but only if it incorporates the right processes. And for that, development must be centred around people, and we need to proceed in stages and remain adaptable.
The method has proved its worth over the years, with Axians Infoma progressing from the role of technical provider to that of strategic partner, while rationalised workflows have hugely improved administrative efficiency.
The town’s current plans go beyond finance, targeting digital records processing to make remote working possible for every department.
02/16/2026
