Milan, October 8th, 2025 – S2E, a consulting firm specializing in business technology and digital transformation, has implemented for HOFI SPA, the first institutional group in Italy’s funeral industry, an extensive technological modernization project that has enabled the holding company to achieve an advanced infrastructure ensuring high performance, security, service continuity, and centralized control.
HOFI SPA brings together the most qualified companies in the sector with the goal of strengthening their competitiveness through consolidated business models and a corporate governance approach grounded in ethics, transparency, and legality. This strategy has allowed the Milan-based investment holding to establish itself as a leading player in Italy’s funeral services market.
Thanks to its solid organizational structure and continuous development of its service portfolio, HOFI is today the leading national group in the sector, delivering over 16,000 services through approximately 200 local units and 39 funeral homes across the country, employing 750 people, and reporting 2024 revenues of €120 million. The Group’s mission is to define new industry benchmarks by promoting a more structured and innovative market, guiding the sector toward a new phase of sustainable growth.
The Technological Challenge
HOFI’s main technological need was to transform its existing IT system — based on an obsolete, rigid, and non-scalable platform subject to vendor lock-in — into a modern and flexible infrastructure. The objective was to eliminate dependency on the legacy provider, ensure secure and high-performance connections among branches, strengthen governance, and enhance overall IT performance through centralized infrastructure control.
“The technological transformation we achieved marks a crucial milestone in HOFI’s evolution. The main challenge was to guide a rapidly expanding group toward unified, resilient, and scalable IT governance while ensuring operational continuity and service security,” said Gerhard Tippmann, ICT Supervisor at HOFI SPA. “The project was successfully carried out thanks to the constant commitment of our IT department, which worked in close synergy with S2E, coordinating every phase with precision and attention to detail. The result is not only a more powerful infrastructure but also an IT ecosystem ready to support the Group’s future developments and enable more centralized and efficient management. This initiative represents a turning point for HOFI, aligning technology with strategic objectives and defining a clear roadmap for the next phases of innovation.”
S2E’s Role in the Transformation
To meet these challenges, HOFI chose S2E as its partner for the digital transformation journey. S2E adopted an end-to-end approach, conducting a technical and process assessment based on the ITIL framework. Building on this analysis, the company designed an advanced infrastructure, implemented a secure and distributed networking system, activated colocation services, and introduced proactive monitoring supported by multi-layered security solutions.
The project resulted in the creation of a scalable, resilient, and highly reliable IT architecture, hosted within the Global Cloud Data Center of Aruba Business in Ponte San Pietro (BG) — a Rating 4 (formerly Tier IV) certified facility, among the most advanced in Europe for security and operational continuity.
“We guided HOFI through a profound transformation journey, delivering a modern, scalable solution compliant with the highest industry standards,” said Mario Cubello, Business Line Manager at S2E. “Thanks to our expertise and our partnership with Aruba Business, we have delivered a solid infrastructure ready to meet future challenges.”
Tangible Results
The project delivered measurable results, including:
- 30% reduction in operating costs expected within the second year
- Zero downtime during migration
- 50% faster access speed across branch offices
- Unified management of resources, access, and monitoring
- The new IT architecture represents the foundation for HOFI’s ongoing evolution toward a hybrid cloud-ready model, capable of sustaining long-term growth.
- Future developments include:
- Integration with containerized services (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker)
- AI-driven monitoring (predictive analytics and proactive resource management through artificial intelligence)
- Advanced orchestration and automazioni functions
Technical Information
The infrastructure implemented by S2E was designed to ensure high performance, service continuity, security, and centralized control.
Solutions Implemented
- 3-node VMware by Broadcom cluster for virtualized, high-availability SDDC environments
- Enterprise multi-tier storage with intelligent tiering for critical workloads
- FortiGate firewalls and IPsec encrypted tunnels for secure branch connectivity
- Centralized remote access via Apache Guacamole with LDAP authentication
- Veeam backup and replication with automated restore testing and instant recovery
- Centralized monitoring via CheckMK with real-time dashboards
- Colocation services and on-site installation by S2E with dedicated, energy-efficient racks
Strategic Benefits
- Centralized governance of the entire IT infrastructure
- Secure connectivity for all branch locations
- Elimination of technological lock-in
- High levels of physical, perimeter, and logical security
- Improved performance and simplified management through virtualization
- Maximum electrical, climatic, and logical redundancy thanks to Aruba’s infrastructure
About S2E | Solutions to Enterprises
S2E is a 100% Italian consulting firm specializing in business technology. Founded in 2008, it is headquartered in Milan with offices in Rome and Lecce and in Luxembourg. Today, it employs over 420 people, including 375 IT professionals. With innovation and continuous scouting of new technologies as its strengths, S2E redesigns, customizes, and develops solutions in artificial intelligence, data solutions, cybersecurity, hyperautomation and robotic process automation, data center, network, enterprise mobility, application maintenance, legacy modernization, cloud computing, as well as consulting and professional services.These solutions support organizations in their digital transformation, particularly in the banking, insurance, retail, energy & oil, telco, utility, fashion, and public administration sectors. S2E is committed to equal opportunities, celebrates diversity, and strives to create an inclusive environment for all employees. Its continuous pursuit of cutting-edge technologies and strong focus on people are the driving forces behind S2E—where people have always been at the center. Learn more at www.solutions2enterprises.com
Press Contacts
S2E / Emanuela Colò
Mobile: +39 333 9648479 – emanuela.colo@s2e-pro.com
Quorum PR / Giovanna Benvenuti
Mobile: +39 347 4007536 – giovanna.benvenuti@quorum-pr.com