![\"Advantech](\"https:\/\/creditdevice.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Advantech_klantcase-cwv.webp\")
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With its European headquarters established in Eindhoven, Advantech is a multicultural organization with employees from all over the world. It is a dynamic and flexible organization, constantly looking for new ways to embrace the trends of the Internet of Things (IoT), big data and artificial intelligence to assist business partners and clients in connecting their industrial chains.<\/p>\n
Developing people is one of the main focusses of Advantech. According to Guido Wurring, European Financial Controller at Advantech, there are a lot of success stories of employees who have developed themselves and have grown within the organization. A good example is an employee who started in the warehouse and has grown to the leader of a sales team. If you are motivated, keep on developing yourself and show engagement, Advantech will offer you the opportunity to grow.<\/p>\n
When you offer your employees room to grow,\u00a0this\u00a0positively influences\u00a0the growth of the\u00a0organization.\u00a0With a turnover\u00a0increase\u00a0from 80 million in 2014 to 225 million in 2019 the success of the\u00a0organization\u00a0speaks for itself. Also, when it comes to credit management,\u00a0a lot has changed. Back in 2009, the company\u00a0partnered with\u00a0CreditDevice, when Guido\u00a0Wurring\u00a0started the credit management department at\u00a0Advantech\u00a0Europe.<\/p>\n
Over the past years, the credit management department has matured enormously. According to Guido, the main reason why the team could develop themselves as much, has everything to do with the software of CreditDevice. With the constant improvement of the software and the development of new features, it was easy for the department to pick up on these innovations and improvements.<\/p>\n
The cooperation between the sales- and credit management departments has become more important in many companies. After all, the sales team is constantly in contact with the customers and has access to inside information, which could be very useful for the credit management department. Also, within Advantech, the cooperation between sales and credit management has improved over the years. However, when Guido came back to work for Advantech in 2019, after leaving the company 5 years ago (or in 2014) , he noticed that the focus was more on strategic issues instead of solving credit management related issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main\u00a0goals of credit management should always be on\u00a0firstly\u00a0preventing risk and damage for the company and secondly\u00a0to collect money. To do so,\u00a0you need to involve other departments\u00a0and work together\u00a0without losing sight of what is most important. Therefore, over the past 10 months, we moved\u00a0a little bit\u00a0away from serving the sales department.\u00a0\u00a0We\u00a0focused on risk prevention, collecting money and solving disputes,\u00a0while\u00a0involving sales when needed.\u00a0Of course,\u00a0we are still supporting our sales\u00a0team.\u00a0We should not lose this out of our focus,\u00a0but we need to balance these four areas in a good way\u201d, says Guido.<\/p>\n
According to Guido,\u00a0to create\u00a0this balance, you need\u00a0transparency\u00a0and\u00a0partnering with\u00a0the sales department.\u00a0 We (The Advantech CM Department), therefore, developed a communication concept for credit management. Integrating the software into this concept is an essential and very important part. With this concept in mind sales\u00a0can now\u00a0access\u00a0the credit management software of\u00a0CreditDevice\u00a0to view only information or\u00a0to add \/\u00a0amend\u00a0crucial information.\u00a0In this way\u00a0sales can see exactly what the credit managers are doing, see the behaviour of their customers\u00a0and most importantly\u00a0understand\u00a0that their colleagues\u00a0are transparent in their decisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we are transparent towards sales,\u00a0we create\u00a0understanding\u00a0and\u00a0there is\u00a0of course\u00a0always room for discussion.\u00a0I have to say that during this transformation the software of CreditDevice has been a huge help.\u00a0We moved the communication between our customers and sales more and more towards the credit management software,\u00a0instead of sending e-mails via\u00a0Outlook.\u00a0Especially,\u00a0when it comes to urgent requests or\u00a0information,\u00a0I asked the sales team to always use the software. This does not only mean that everything we do is documented within the software,\u00a0but it\u00a0also means that it is\u00a0scheduled, and we never lose it out of our focus\u201d, adds Guido.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI,\u00a0therefore, always call the\u00a0software of CreditDevice, a\u00a0Customer Relation Management system (CRM) for credit management\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0The next\u00a0project\u00a0is to use the dispute management\u00a0system,\u00a0within the software,\u00a0more effectively. By\u00a0involving\u00a0other departments\u00a0in\u00a0dispute management,\u00a0the\u00a0disputes will be solved faster,\u00a0and\u00a0everything will be\u00a0documented\u00a0in the system.\u00a0\u201cAn important next step\u00a0in\u00a0becoming even more transparent,\u00a0within the\u00a0organization,\u00a0and\u00a0to\u00a0get the acceptance we need\u201d\u00a0explains Guido.<\/p>\n
When asking Guido,\u00a0what effect the corona crisis has on\u00a0Advantech Credit Management, he reacted surprisingly\u00a0positive. The\u00a0number of customers increased from 7.000 in 2014 to 17.000 in 2019, which is a tremendous increase\u00a0meaning that the focus was mainly on increasing business. When the corona crisis\u00a0hit Europe\u00a0in March\u00a02020\u00a0and the turnover dropped,\u00a0the focused\u00a0changed. Companies had to\u00a0close\u00a0their\u00a0offices,\u00a0could no\u00a0longer\u00a0pay their invoices\u00a0or asked for instalment plans.\u00a0Meaning that the overdue amount of 30 days\u00a0and longer\u00a0increased from less than 4 percent\u00a0before the crisis to 12,8\u00a0percent\u00a0in May\u00a02020.\u00a0Due to the credit management software of CreditDevice,\u00a0team\u00a0effort and good communication with both sales and their customers, they managed to\u00a0reduce the number from the high peak in May to\u00a02,21% in\u00a0November\u00a02020. This is one of the best results\u00a0Advantech\u00a0has had within the past 2,5 years without damaging the customer business relationships.<\/p>\n
The fact\u00a0that they could reduce the overdue amount of 30 days and longer is,\u00a0of course,\u00a0a great result, especially during\u00a0a\u00a0crisis. But this is\u00a0not the reason why Guido feels that\u00a0the\u00a0corona\u00a0crisis\u00a0has had a positive effect\u00a0on credit management.\u00a0This has to do with the\u00a0changed\u00a0mindset of the employees\u00a0at\u00a0Advantech\u00a0and especially the sales department. People have become more sensitive regarding credit limits, risk prevention, overdue invoices and what it means when the money is not coming in.\u00a0Guido says, \u2018\u2019everybody understands that the\u00a0turnover\u00a0dropped\u00a0not because\u00a0we have bad products,\u00a0but because our customers are not able to pick up their products or because the offices are closed.\u00a0Due to corona,\u00a0the mentality within the\u00a0organization\u00a0changed.\u00a0\u201cWe involved our sales department into the communication with our customers according to our transparency alignment. This has increased the risk sensitivity of our sales and cooperation.\u201d Also, now during the crisis, the software has helped us to pick up critical issues right\u00a0away and schedule our\u00a0activities,\u00a0if a customer did\u00a0not pay its invoices while involving our sales departments.\u00a0We never lost our customers or their financial issues and the demands of our sales team out of sight due to the\u00a0credit management\u00a0software.<\/p>\n
Guido concludes that\u00a0even though he sounds \u2018positive\u2019 about the effect corona has\u00a0had\u00a0on his department,\u00a0it takes a huge effort of all employees to survive the crisis. Everybody is working together, and employees are engaged 150%. \u2018\u2019The big challenge is to\u00a0continue\u00a0the\u00a0understanding of how important the role of credit management is.\u00a0\u00a0This is something\u00a0we need to focus on. Because\u00a0whenever\u00a0corona is over and the turnover increases\u00a0again, we\u00a0need to\u00a0be very careful\u00a0to\u00a0not\u00a0to\u00a0go back to how it was\u00a0before.\u00a0We\u00a0must\u00a0keep the\u00a0focus.\u00a0This will\u00a0be\u00a0one of our challenges over the next few\u00a0months\u201d,\u00a0explains\u00a0Guido.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With the constant improvement of the software and the development of new features, it was easy for the department to pick up on these innovations and improvements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":21208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"page_builder":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[296],"alle-categorieen":[],"blogs-nieuws":[],"class_list":["post-6037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-customer","tag-case"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/creditdevice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/creditdevice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/creditdevice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creditdevice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creditdevice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6037"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/creditdevice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71869,"href":"https:\/\/creditdevice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6037\/revisions\/71869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creditdevice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/creditdevice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creditdevice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creditdevice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6037"},{"taxonomy":"alle-categorieen","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creditdevice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/alle-categorieen?post=6037"},{"taxonomy":"blogs-nieuws","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creditdevice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blogs-nieuws?post=6037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}