"Efficiently controlled“: ERGO and community4you in an interview
Flottenmanagement: the journal for innovative fleet and mobility management invited to an interview.
For several years the slogan ”Insuring is understanding” has been buzzing through the German insurance landscape. Hidden behind this slogan lies one of the largest insurance groups in Germany and Europe. Ergo Group AG headquartered in Düsseldorf is represented in more than 30 countries worldwide, serving thousands of customers. Mobility is particularly important in order to maintain contact with customers for a large insurance company such as ERGO.
f.l.t.r..: Sven-Christian Timm, Martina Ermecke (both ERGO), Lavinio Cerquetti and Stefan Krohn (both community4you) at the ERGO-headquarter Düsseldorf | photo: Flotte Medien GmbH
The contact with the customer is a particularly important focus for ERGO and requires the provision of various flexible and demand-oriented mobility concepts. A large number of service vehicles are an important part of the mobility towards the customer. Administration and control of the vehicle fleet has been supported since the beginning of 2016 by the use of the fleet software of the software specialist community4you AG.
A condition for the selection and implementation of the fleet software provided by community4you was the organisational consolidation of various group companies into a centralised responsibility at ERGO as well as the associated standardisation of guidelines and processes. With a fleet size of around 1.200 vehicles, a point was reached at which the self-developed fleet system came to its limits. Business intelligence, analyses, and reports (for example, operating costs or CO2 consumption of individual user groups) had to be collected and processed manually. "The aim is to drive the economic management of the fleet by means of continuous, mainly digitalised processes across all process participants. This project is supported as much as possible by the use of the fleet software developed by community4you“, explains Marine Ermecke, Head of event, travel and fleet management at ERGO.
The focus on the primary economic management of the fleet also led to the decision to operate a pure sales fleet, taking into account the company's specifics, even though the trend in recent years towards service leasing is going to reduce the costs of fleet management, thus saving money. However, ERGO relies on a clear fleet philosophy and specifies the basic conditions for the selection and configuration of service vehicles as well as the demanding user groups. “We will control existing and future fleet processes through all stakeholders through the use of the software provided by community4you. Among other things, configuration, approval workflow, scheduling and transfer of the vehicles are controlled and documented completely by the system. All stakeholders are exclusively within one system", says Sven-Christian Timm, Head of fleet management at ERGO. [...]
After various discussions and workshops in the course of a tender process, the Düsseldorf insurance company was sure that the best solution was to be found in the system of community4you AG. A very important point was the flexibility of fleet management and the possibility of influencing changes themselves. The fact that this is easily possible with community4you, according to Lavinio Cerquetti, board member at community4you, is due to the special platform of the software manufacturer from Chemnitz: "Developers need a technological platform that provides a basic framework of functions to write complex software systems today. Typically, companies from Europe use a platform from the US, for example from IBM, Oracle or Microsoft, or a free open-source platform.” Only a few companies write their own platform. "In Europe only three companies operate a commercial platform: SAP, Software AG and we - community4you.“ The independence from large corporations allows community4you to respond individually to the wishes of the major customers such as ERGO.
With its technology, community4you has created a platform which allows the flexible implementation of software solutions around the fleet. The company can, among other things, offer fleet, leasing, damage, workshop and warehouse management as well as apps or a driver portal from a single source. However, in order for the software to perform its service, the database must first be fed with information. "Data migration into the system is one of the most important phases in a large customer project. An intensive exchange is essential. If only a part of the data is missing, the software cannot work effectively“, Stefan Krohn, project manager at community4you, describes the beginnings of a project and adds: "Each customer comes from a legacy system, in which the data of vehicles, drivers, standards, business partners and accounting data were maintained. We can do everything right, both technically and specialistically, but only the customer knows his data and must ultimately check whether the data have been correctly migrated into the software.“ The data migration of ERGO is an example of how complex and time-intensive this process can be. In September 2015 the basic software comm.fleet was introduced. With the completion of the implementation of the data in March 2016, the foundation was laid for further development.
To ensure that the process runs even more smoothly, the software is continuously supplemented by other product components of community4you AG. The focus of ERGO is on optimising the control and continuity of the processes. Among other things, the fleet management of the insurer has already been extended with the module of the vehicle configurator comm.cars for multipurpose vehicles. "We are currently in the process of developing the nationwide handover and return of vehicles using a tablet / smartphone web application together with ERGO and to implement it into the system", adds Stefan Krohn. This will make the overall process more efficient and transparent for all process participants. All necessary data and information are loaded into the web apps from comm.fleet and, after successful handover / return, are also returned to the comm.fleet system.
A condition for the selection and implementation of the fleet software provided by community4you was the organisational consolidation of various group companies into a centralised responsibility at ERGO as well as the associated standardisation of guidelines and processes. With a fleet size of around 1.200 vehicles, a point was reached at which the self-developed fleet system came to its limits. Business intelligence, analyses, and reports (for example, operating costs or CO2 consumption of individual user groups) had to be collected and processed manually. "The aim is to drive the economic management of the fleet by means of continuous, mainly digitalised processes across all process participants. This project is supported as much as possible by the use of the fleet software developed by community4you“, explains Marine Ermecke, Head of event, travel and fleet management at ERGO.
The focus on the primary economic management of the fleet also led to the decision to operate a pure sales fleet, taking into account the company's specifics, even though the trend in recent years towards service leasing is going to reduce the costs of fleet management, thus saving money. However, ERGO relies on a clear fleet philosophy and specifies the basic conditions for the selection and configuration of service vehicles as well as the demanding user groups. “We will control existing and future fleet processes through all stakeholders through the use of the software provided by community4you. Among other things, configuration, approval workflow, scheduling and transfer of the vehicles are controlled and documented completely by the system. All stakeholders are exclusively within one system", says Sven-Christian Timm, Head of fleet management at ERGO. [...]
After various discussions and workshops in the course of a tender process, the Düsseldorf insurance company was sure that the best solution was to be found in the system of community4you AG. A very important point was the flexibility of fleet management and the possibility of influencing changes themselves. The fact that this is easily possible with community4you, according to Lavinio Cerquetti, board member at community4you, is due to the special platform of the software manufacturer from Chemnitz: "Developers need a technological platform that provides a basic framework of functions to write complex software systems today. Typically, companies from Europe use a platform from the US, for example from IBM, Oracle or Microsoft, or a free open-source platform.” Only a few companies write their own platform. "In Europe only three companies operate a commercial platform: SAP, Software AG and we - community4you.“ The independence from large corporations allows community4you to respond individually to the wishes of the major customers such as ERGO.
With its technology, community4you has created a platform which allows the flexible implementation of software solutions around the fleet. The company can, among other things, offer fleet, leasing, damage, workshop and warehouse management as well as apps or a driver portal from a single source. However, in order for the software to perform its service, the database must first be fed with information. "Data migration into the system is one of the most important phases in a large customer project. An intensive exchange is essential. If only a part of the data is missing, the software cannot work effectively“, Stefan Krohn, project manager at community4you, describes the beginnings of a project and adds: "Each customer comes from a legacy system, in which the data of vehicles, drivers, standards, business partners and accounting data were maintained. We can do everything right, both technically and specialistically, but only the customer knows his data and must ultimately check whether the data have been correctly migrated into the software.“ The data migration of ERGO is an example of how complex and time-intensive this process can be. In September 2015 the basic software comm.fleet was introduced. With the completion of the implementation of the data in March 2016, the foundation was laid for further development.
To ensure that the process runs even more smoothly, the software is continuously supplemented by other product components of community4you AG. The focus of ERGO is on optimising the control and continuity of the processes. Among other things, the fleet management of the insurer has already been extended with the module of the vehicle configurator comm.cars for multipurpose vehicles. "We are currently in the process of developing the nationwide handover and return of vehicles using a tablet / smartphone web application together with ERGO and to implement it into the system", adds Stefan Krohn. This will make the overall process more efficient and transparent for all process participants. All necessary data and information are loaded into the web apps from comm.fleet and, after successful handover / return, are also returned to the comm.fleet system.
Lavinio Cerquetti and Stefan Krohn (l., both community4you) together with Martina Ermecke and Sven-Christian Timm (c., both ERGO) Robin Haake (r: fleet management) explain the fleet management of the insurer | photo: Flotte Medien GmbH
"The software constantly monitors the data and carries out plausibility checks. Therefore, the system recognizes certain data constellations and can react to them without the need to actively use the software. This means that we have the opportunity to centrally control and coordinate all processes. We have basically created a central intelligence that is constantly fed with lots of data. Based on this data, the software can optimise and streamline the processes in fleet management", Lavinio Cerquetti describes the functional principle of the community4you fleet management software. From this moment, the insurer could fully benefit from the "intelligence" of the software.
The flexibility of the system is met with great approval at ERGO. The insurer, among other things, does not rely on a bonus malus system to reduce costs and CO2 emissions, but, in addition to carrying out eco- and driving safety training, he focuses rather on the involvement of drivers. The user receives all essential information about the costs and consumption of his vehicle with the aid of a driver's portal, as well as a transparent comparison with the results of his reference group. A traffic light signal signals the user how it is compared to the reference group. In the opinion of the fleet managers, this automatism significantly reduces the effort and also ensures greater efficiency in fleet management by more actively engaging and motivating users.
However, with increasing digitalisation and storage of data in the cloud, the question of security arises automatically. "For an insurance company like ERGO, special requirements are placed on data security. On the part of our IT and data protection, there are high demands on data storage and data processing by external service providers," confirms Sven-Christian Timm. At community4you data and quality assurance plays an important role. In order to ensure the highest security standards and the best possible quality, every night, the latest version of the software is executed on all servers. In addition, at night, so-called test coverage runs, which test 95 percent of the sources in all possible constellations such as databases and operating systems.
However, despite the measures of the software producer, it can happen from time to time that the technology has to deal with minor problems. Then the close contact between both companies pays off. The weekly conference call is used to solve problems or to incorporate improvements. In urgent cases, the communication takes place directly on the spot, in order to find a timely solution.
The flexibility of the system is met with great approval at ERGO. The insurer, among other things, does not rely on a bonus malus system to reduce costs and CO2 emissions, but, in addition to carrying out eco- and driving safety training, he focuses rather on the involvement of drivers. The user receives all essential information about the costs and consumption of his vehicle with the aid of a driver's portal, as well as a transparent comparison with the results of his reference group. A traffic light signal signals the user how it is compared to the reference group. In the opinion of the fleet managers, this automatism significantly reduces the effort and also ensures greater efficiency in fleet management by more actively engaging and motivating users.
However, with increasing digitalisation and storage of data in the cloud, the question of security arises automatically. "For an insurance company like ERGO, special requirements are placed on data security. On the part of our IT and data protection, there are high demands on data storage and data processing by external service providers," confirms Sven-Christian Timm. At community4you data and quality assurance plays an important role. In order to ensure the highest security standards and the best possible quality, every night, the latest version of the software is executed on all servers. In addition, at night, so-called test coverage runs, which test 95 percent of the sources in all possible constellations such as databases and operating systems.
However, despite the measures of the software producer, it can happen from time to time that the technology has to deal with minor problems. Then the close contact between both companies pays off. The weekly conference call is used to solve problems or to incorporate improvements. In urgent cases, the communication takes place directly on the spot, in order to find a timely solution.
Outlook
Not just at ERGO is the motto "Insuring is understanding". community4you also knows how to adapt to the needs of the customers. From the start of the cooperation, the insurance company was closely involved in the further development of the software. The cooperation has now developed a partnership-based relationship, as Lavinio Cerquetti puts it in a nutshell: "Each type of relationship only works if there is a win-win situation for both sides. There is not a customer on one side and a service provider on the other side – here we have two true partners. Only if we pursue the same goals together we can succeed together." The joint path of both companies will continue to focus on innovation and the software will be significantly optimised through the insurer's feedback.
Source: Translated excerpt from the German version of Flottenmanagement 04/2017: page 18 ff
Photos: Flotte Medien GmbH
Source: Translated excerpt from the German version of Flottenmanagement 04/2017: page 18 ff
Photos: Flotte Medien GmbH
10/17/2017