The Company – Who is HOFI SPA
Since its establishment in 2019, HOFI SPA has launched an ambitious aggregation and consolidation project with the goal of creating the first Italian funeral group backed by institutional capital. HOFI brings together the most qualified companies in the sector with the aim of strengthening competitiveness, adopting proven business models, and implementing corporate governance based on ethics, transparency, and legality. This formula has enabled the Milan-based investment holding to establish itself as a leading player in the Italian funeral services market.
Thanks to a highly solid organizational structure and the continuous development of its offering, HOFI today represents the country’s leading group in the sector, with over 16,000 services managed through around 200 local units and 39 Funeral Homes across Italy, 750 employees, and 2024 revenues of €120 million. The group’s mission is to set new industry benchmarks, promoting the growth of a more structured and innovative market, and steering the sector toward a new phase of development.
Core Technology Requirements
As the group rapidly expanded, the need for a profound technological renewal emerged. The existing IT infrastructure was outdated, rigid, and non-scalable, tied to lock-in with the existing provider. Key priorities identified included: eliminating dependence on the legacy provider, ensuring secure and high performance connections among branches, strengthening governance, and improving overall IT ecosystem performance by centralizing infrastructure-level control.
“The technological transformation we carried out was a crucial step in HOFI’s evolution. The main challenge was guiding a fast-growing group toward unified, resilient, and scalable IT governance, while ensuring operational continuity and service security. Thanks to the constant commitment of our IT department, working in close synergy with S2E and coordinating every phase with precision and attention to detail, we achieved not only a more efficient infrastructure but an IT ecosystem ready to support the group’s future developments. This path marks a turning point for HOFI, aligning tech-nology with strategic goals and defining a clear roadmap for future innovation. “comments Gerhard Tippmann, ICT Supervisor at HOFI S.P.A.
S2E, The Chosen Technology Partner
To meet these challenges, HOFI selected S2E as its partner for the digital transformation journey. S2E adopted an end-to-end approach, beginning with a technical and process assessment based on the ITIL framework. From this analysis, S2E designed an advanced infrastructure, implemented a distributed and secure networking system, activated colocation services, and set up proactive monitoring with multilevel security solutions. The project resulted in the creation of a scalable, resilient, and highly reliable IT architecture, hosted at Aruba Business’s Global Cloud Data Center in Ponte San Pietro (BG), a Rating 4 (ex-Tier IV) certified facility, among the most advanced in Europe for security and operational continuity.
The Technology Solutions
The infrastructure implemented by S2E was designed to ensure high performance, service continuity, security, and centralized control:
- 3-node VMware by Broadcom cluster for highly reliable, virtualized SDDC environments
- Enterprise multi-tier storage with intelligent tiering for critical workloads
- FortiGate firewalls and encrypted IPsec tunnels for branch security
- Centralized remote access via Apache Guacamole with LDAP authentication
- Veeam backup and replication with automated restore tests and instant recovery
- Centralized monitoring with CheckMK and real-time dashboards
- Colocation services and physical installation managed by S2E with dedicated and efficient racks
The Benefits
Thanks to the new infrastructure, HOFI now benefits from a more efficient, secure, and flexible IT architecture, gaining numerous strategic advantages:
- Centralized governance of the entire infrastructure
- Secure connections for all branch offices
- Elimination of technology lock-in
- High levels of physical, perimeter, and logical security
- Improved performance and simplified management through virtualization
- Maximum redundancy in power, climate, and logic thanks to Aruba’s infrastructure
“We guided HOFI through a deep transformation journey, offering a modern, scalable solution aligned with the highest standards,” said Mario Cubello, Business Line Manager at S2E. “Thanks to our experience and our partnership with Aruba Business, we ensured a solid infrastructure ready to face future challenges.”
Tangible Results
- 30% reduction in operating costs expected within the second year
- Zero downtime during migration phase
- 50% increase in access speed at branch offices
- Unified management of resources, access, and monitoring
Future Outlook
The new IT architecture represents a starting point for HOFI’s continuous evolution toward a hybrid cloud-ready model capable of supporting long-term growth. Future developments include:
- Integration with containerized services (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker)
- AI-driven monitoring (predictive analytics and proactive resource management)
- Advanced orchestration and automation functions
Project Duration
The overall duration of the project is estimated between 12 and 24 months, with progressive phases of assessment, implementation, and final testing.
About S2E
S2E | Solutions to Enterprises is a 100% Italian consulting company specializing in business technology, founded in 2008. With innovation and continuous scouting of new technologies as its key 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, consulting, and professional services. These solutions enable organizations to pursue digital transformation, particularly in the banking, insurance, retail, energy & oil, telco, utilities, fashion, and public administration sectors.Headquartered in Milan with offices in Rome and Lecce, S2E employs over 420 people, including 375 IT professionals.