Case Delta Lloyd

The financial sector is currently dealing with turbulent times. Less trust in banks and insurers, stricter control by regulatory authorities and stricter regulations are a daily reality. This means that it is more important than ever before that internal processes are run correctly and that costs are controlled as much as possible. To this we should add that new players in the insurance market are ensuring there is constantly more and more competition.  Consumers are becoming more critical by the day and compare providers online with each other. This sets high requirements with regard to the quality of the services.  These developments mean for Delta Lloyd that the focus will be firmly on customer loyalty, improvement of internal processes and cost control.

Delta Lloyd Group. A trusted partner since 1807 for insurances, pensions, banking and investment. It puts its services and products on the market under the brand names Delta Lloyd, OHRA and ABN AMRO Verzekeringen. With more than 5,500 employees with permanent contracts, Delta Lloyd Group is mainly active in the Netherlands and Belgium. Its own assets amount to € 4.0 billion and it manages investments for a value of € 72 billion.

Our challenge: cost control
Costs saving becomes an important drive when cutbacks and competition are exerting pressure on an organisation. In the area of procurement, the necessary gain could still be achieved at Delta Lloyd. Wim Weima, Director Procurement, says: “When I started in my current position, Delta Lloyds' procurement policy was still being built. The process did not yet run smoothly and, furthermore, it moved ahead in a fragmented manner. Everybody could conclude agreements with suppliers and place orders independently from each other. The result was that procurement was not smart and unnecessarily high costs were being incurred. An important objective when improving the procurement policy was, therefore, to centralise this process and to reduce procurement costs.”

Complete, online solution
“We wanted an automation solution with which we could control the full process from supplier management up to and including invoice processing to streamline the procurement process. We decided to go for Esize because they could offer us an integrated solution: one system for the support of all our procurement processes. This was exactly what we wanted. It is, moreover, an online (SaaS) solution where the most important benefit is that we do not have to maintain and manage the application ourselves.”

More control on expenditure
“Partly (in particular IT and business services), orders are taking place through the central system. Our procurement process is running there much faster and more efficiently. The solution also helps us to obtain full insight into this process.  The system provides important information within this context: who are our suppliers, what type of contracts have we concluded with them, which orders are currently running and which invoices must be paid? When you have insight into this type of information at any given moment, you have more control on your expenditure and you can purchase more smartly.”

Fast processing of invoices
“Since we have been working with the Esize software, matters have also improved with regard to our ordering and payment process. When someone orders something now, an order is created in the system. This order will be sent to the supplier automatically after it has been approved.  When the invoice arrives, the Esize system will match the invoice automatically with the related order. If there is a match, the invoice is approved and made ready to be paid. Problem invoices are picked out automatically. The system, therefore, takes over a large proportion of the workload and ensures there is fast and meticulous processing of approximately 12,000 invoices per year.”

Approval of orders
Another benefit obtained from the invoice system is that authorisation takes place beforehand. Weima: “Previously, order approval took place when the invoice for the order arrived. But at that moment in time there is no more room for discussion and a delivery can no longer be reversed. By bringing the authorisation process forward in time, we can now grant approval when the order request takes place and, therefore, before the order is actually issued. We now determine in advance whether the budget is sufficient for an order. This ensures that we will never again be confronted by unpleasant surprises.”

Efficient hiring process
Delta Lloyd also wished to make the hiring of external staff more efficient. The organisation is also automating this process with Esize. Weima: “Temporary workers fill in their timesheets themselves electronically, which are, next, approved by a manager. Because this process is fully automatic, this saves us plenty of administrative work. But the module offers more: the manager will send himself or herself an invoice proposal to the supplier. All invoices leave the premises error-free and are paid  on time due to this. This is how you prevent discussions about worked hours after the event, which happened quite regularly before.” 

Surprises
Weima believes it is important that he does not have to deal with unexpected surprises in his job. “When I have full insight into our suppliers, orders and payment liabilities, I am in control and so is my procurement organisation. And should things not run smoothly for whatever reason, the system will tell me where I must implement measures. This is how I keep control.”