Menzis reaches a higher level with its Procure-to-Pay process with Proactis

Profile

The origins of Health insurance company Menzis dates back to 1836 when a group of Arnhem doctors, pharmacists and dentists took the progressive initiative to set up a health insurance fund: The Society of Precaution. This eventually became Menzis, which now employs more than 1,000 people.
 
Today, the company is looking for smart answers to current challenges. "Together with customers, municipalities, healthcare providers, patient associations and other partners, we are working hard for affordable and accessible care", says Vollaers-Schepers, Purchasing Manager at Menzis. "Extra effort is provided in the five regions where most of our insured people live." The company has two section: Menzis and Anderzorg."We offer basic insurance and supplementary insurance throughout the Netherlands." Menzis does this for 2.3 million customers.

How Proactis helped

Menzis started working on this in 2012. The Purchasing department was extended and procurement was centralised. "Until then, we had a lot of people ordering through it. They picked up the phone and called their own suppliers. This was undesirable, because we often had no savings advantages, no view of what was being purchased and the billing process was often very inefficient." The Purchasing and Finance departments put their heads together and worked on what the Procure-to-Pay process should look like. "We did see that implementation of Proactis would positively impact the entire organisation. So, we had to bring people on board to resolve initial resistance. "Each buyer had to pre-record the order application in the system so that it could be approved." The benefits of this are later in the process, as there is an invoice that can then be matched with the purchase order (PO). “So we had to be clear, for example, in consulting with the core user groups and managers throughout the process."

Also, new suppliers can only be introduced to the system with the approval of Purchasing. "We discuss this in consultation with users. Can we bundle suppliers? Do we need other suppliers? That kind of thing." If approved purchase orders match with invoices, they can automatically pass through for payment. Purchasing and Finance therefore have an overview of all non-care-related purchasing. "With the new method, we have access to valuable management information that we make fully visible with dashboards. This is based on quarterly reports and key performance indicators that we have agreed. In principle, we do not accept it if a purchase order is missing from an invoice. In some cases, you can't prevent that, but if there's no PO, we start talking to the business."