Interpolis
The Interpolis insurance company has a strong agricultural history. From the 19th century onward, farmers and market gardeners joined forces in several co-operative organizations. These were produce-auctions but banks and guarantee funds were also represented. The banks underwent a series of mergers in the past century, which eventually resulted in the RABO-bank.

The different insurers and pension funds started co-operating closer and closer, until they finally founded the company Interpolis in 1969. Interpolis has been part of the Rabobank Group since 1990. The chairman of the general management, Kick van der Pol, said the following about this symbiosis in a previous interview: 'Processes between the commercial factory Interpolis and the distribution channel Rabobank are extremely efficient; something which would not have happened had they stayed separate institutions.'

There remains a sense of mutual purpose and solidarity in spite of this centralization and it is an essential element of company policy.

At the moment, Interpolis has six thousand employees and booked annual revenues of five billion euros in 2003. Apart from the ARBO (employer reintegration) and insurance activities, the group also manages the pensions of 2.5 million people.

The team managers and their domain
Marco and Peter are two quiet, educated people in their thirties. They love to talk about their work but they also have other things to say, as I found out during lunch. Marco is responsible for systems and operational management, Peter is responsible for the software development.
At the moment, Interpolis' pension software consists of four separate entities. Each of the previously independent offices in Tilburg, Zoetermeer, Utrecht and Groningen use their own back office package. The strategy is to eventually move to just one system. The ERP software will also ultimately be harmonised.

The iSeries hardware is located in Zoetermeer; it has several logical partitions. It runs, among other things, the Groningen in-house developed pension package ANS, which has been in use since 1995. When I asked if it was a legacy system, Peter responded: "I would not call it that. All modifications and additions have been reasonably well documented and we are satisfied with the functionality." ANS has been managed with TD/OMS for two years now.

ANS and TD/OMS
I then inquired about the change management software they used before TD (short for 'TD/OMS') and why the switch to TD.

Peter explained it this way: "Originally, we did the object management completely manually. Later we started using the vanilla management function of 2E but soon after, when we asked ourselves: 'Is this good enough?' the answer was a clear 'No'." My predecessor had already contacted the supplier of TurnOver. This was a large international company and we did not hear anything negative about them."

Marco observed: "We were also in close contact with a company in Groningen which used the same package."

Peter: "That is why we went ahead with TurnOver. We completed a proof of concept, which took months, in September 2003. And at that moment the ICT company Ordina came into the picture through our brothers in arm in Zoetermeer. Eventually Ordina would be responsible for all management aspects on the side of the iSeries. Ordina was already working with TD and at that moment we quickly made a number of decisions. Marco and I came to the conclusion that if possible it should be TD. And Marco went to Remain…"

Marco: "At that moment, the management component clearly became an issue and we decided that I would be responsible for the rest of the project. First we wanted to know the following: Can TD at least offer the same as TurnOver? And what about support? This was crucial and we had a project group research it with two people from Peter's team and two from mine.

Peter: These were experienced people who had also experienced the entire episode with TurnOver and who could therefore give a decisive answer quite quickly. And the answer to the question whether TD offered at least the same was an unequivocally yes."

Marco: The first contact I had at Remain was with Marco Kok and from the beginning it was very agreeable. My first impression was that he had a pragmatic attitude and was willing to think with us, which makes conversations much easier. After that we introduced his colleague Wim Jongman to our people here in Groningen."

Peter: "From the beginning he had the following mindset: 'How are we going to solve your problem?' A real hands-on approach, no empty words. He was also open minded with regards to TD. He was not saying: this is the package, but: with a few adjustments on our side TD will meet your requirements. We did not put these things in writing; the atmosphere was one of mutual trust."

Marco: "Remain might not be a large company, but they are quick to respond. If we asked: 'is it possible for you to come over here Wim?' he would be here in no time. And this is also what I have heard from other TD users."
Implementation

Peter: "There were actually no problems during the implementation. Some adjustments had to be made to link TD with 2E and Wim has made these extremely quickly. The training of the guys here went very smoothly. The training material was in Dutch, which was considered a positive point by the people."

Marco: "The guys here are experienced people, but they caught on to the subject at hand even faster than we had expected. From start to end the implementation actually ran very smoothly."

Peter: There were some typical SYNON problems; certain types of files could not be easily converted. We have had to slightly adjust our operation under the influence of TD, but thankfully Wim had forewarned us about the trouble that would arise.
OMS in real terms

Peter: "we do not use the helpdesk module. For that part of ITIL we have our own software, Marval. For us Marval is leading where it concerns RFC numbers."

Marco: "We have just taken an entire new release of ANS into production by means of OMS. This was the first time we used TD to manage the release and the execution was perfect. Even the more experienced now realise that the discipline which TD requires eventually saves time and definitely results in better quality."

Peter: "The user does not understand something like a level check. You cannot say: '99 per cent passed execution, not bad!' Because, if it doesn't work it doesn't work. TD gives us a sense of safety, which contrasts sharply with the uncomfortable feeling we had before."

Marco: "From the perspective of monitoring we see that the IAD, the internal audit department, has considerably less complaints about us. In the past we frequently had to make adjustments by means of SQL and this did not help data consistency. Occasionally we still have to make some alterations, but much less often thanks to TD. As a matter of fact, I don't think any management package would be able to take away this problem entirely."

Peter: "How do we appreciate the helpdesk of Remain? I have no idea. We have'nt made use of it yet. Up 'til now we've only needed implementation support and that was excellent. One time I had a question, "I'm not sure what it was, of which I thought: 'This will take them some time to work out'. But I had an answer before I knew it."

Future
Marco: "At the moment we are working on our web portal; it's a very important project. It is developed and built in De Meern. I don't think there is any management software available in that specialised niche. TD has major opportunities with regard to this."

Jan de Zeeuw