Greater visibility into creditworthiness

Peter van Eendenburg | Credit Manager | EQUANS

Many people know EQUANS from the energy market, but its field of activity is much broader. “It ranges from technical projects in construction and infrastructure to plant maintenance and making robots for factories,” said Peter van Eendenburg. He has worked at EQUANS for over seventeen years and is currently responsible for Energy B2B and Services there as Credit Manager.

Together with the sales department of Equans

At EQUANS, credit management and sales are on the same floor. The relationship is very good, although of course they have a different perspective. “From my role, I want to bring in as many customers as possible, but with a calculated risk,” says Van Eendenburg. “If a client doesn’t come through, we always look together to see if we can still make it possible. Then we limit the risks or possibly build up a deposit. So we really think along with the sale and sometimes even go with the customer. It’s fun to talk honestly with each other. That’s how you suddenly see solutions.”

Invoicing and credit check

Invoicing is something EQUANS has paid close attention to from the beginning. “That’s hugely important in this sector, because the invoice is often the only thing the customer sees from us. We’re talking about over 40,000 customers, so then that really has to be in order.” He also calls checking creditworthiness essential. However, the diversity in EQUANS’ portfolio makes it difficult to detect trends in this. Moreover, many customers come in through intermediaries. Van Eendenburg: “You have to check the creditworthiness extra well and be able to react quickly. Here we rely heavily on the external expertise of CreditDevice. We fully trust them to monitor this best.”

• “EQUANS’ customer acceptance policy hinges on the quality of credit information.

Small and flexible organization

A pleasant partnership with CreditDevice has existed since last April. “We knew each other from a tender eight years ago. In that time CreditDevice has grown enormously in terms of content. If you look at the extent to which they make a difference compared to other parties, it is particularly in the area of automation. They also listen seriously to our questions and keep their promises. They always think along very well when it comes to what we need. For example, we also use the data for marketing purposes, which suits our needs extremely well. I have also noticed in practice that a smaller, flexible partner works very well. In short, they are close to us and deliver quality.”

Easy reporting

Reporting is much easier for Van Eendenburg than it used to be. If he used to see a risk and wanted to communicate that in the right way to the right colleagues, it took him a long time. Because at each level, of course, different information is relevant. “Thanks to CreditDevice’s software, I can now easily create a customized report for the relevant branches. That way they know in time what’s going on and what they need to take into account.”

Clear credit information

Van Eendenburg used to spend a lot of time sweeping together all kinds of information by hand anyway. He is therefore very enthusiastic about the credit reports provided by CreditDevice. “For more extensive reports, an explanation is included as standard. Exactly that piece of text that we used to type ourselves when someone requested a report. So convenient that we don’t have to do that anymore! Especially when you consider that the Services department of EQUANS consists of about twenty companies, which all come to us for credit checks. Such a solution from CreditDevice is fantastic: we can send the reports in an instant. The information is understandable for everyone: we don’t have to add anything and get fewer questions. That is appreciated on all sides!”

Benefits of Risk Analysis

Thus, thanks to the cooperation with CreditDevice, credit management at EQUANS runs more smoothly. The RiskAnalysis product plays an important role in this, as it has provided more insight into the customer portfolio. “Every day we set up files for that. We also receive an alert if something is going on with a customer. Not only does this allow us to take action faster, but we also have a cleaner and more complete database. I think that’s a big plus. With other vendors, we didn’t provide payment information in such a structured way on a daily basis, but I see now how well that works.”