The following is an abbreviated version of an article that appeared in the Spring/Summer 2002 edition of CSC World.

By Roland Waeyaert & Marc Botenberg

Knowing you need to invest in new IT infrastructure is one thing. Knowing when to make that investment is another.

Given the rapid progress of recent years, finding the right time to invest in new technology is not a simple matter. When the time came for SVMB to adapt to the euro, the company seized the opportunity to implement an entirely new system.

A new system for new services

SVMB, a private company that provides social security benefits to self-employed workers in Belgium, wanted to do more than simply streamline its IT infrastructure and lower its administrative costs. It also wanted a system that would support its plan to provide more services to more members.

Administering government-mandated benefits is only part of SVMB’s business. Social insurance funds may choose to offer other services in addition to the required benefits. What makes these additional services so attractive is that the profit margins on them are much higher than on the mandatory services. To be competitive as well as profitable, SVMB must offer a wide range of services to attract the largest number of members.

Working with CSC, SVMB is developing a single, Web-enabled system to support its expanded range of services. The self-employed already are able to join the fund through its Web site, where they can fill out the required documents. But while SVMB provides social security benefits directly to the self-employed who sign up to become members, those members are not the company’s direct customers.

SVMB’s direct customers are the bookkeeping companies that provide accounting services for the self-employed and for companies that are too small to have their own bookkeeping departments. SVMB provides the bookkeeping companies with the necessary information about social security policies.

This summer, SVMB will be the first social insurance fund to provide this information through direct Web links to the bookkeeping companies. These links will greatly benefit the companies as well as the self-employed and small businesses they serve. When self-employed people start a business, they must go to the bookkeeping companies to do the necessary paperwork. At present, it takes these companies about one month to get the benefits information they need to get a new business started. Providing that information through the Web will cut that time down to one week.

Providing better service for less cost

The new, Web-enabled system not only brings in more members, it also allows SVMB staff to provide more services to those members and to give them more personal attention.

Direct Web links to the bookkeeping companies will help attract new members. Although the self-employed join social insurance funds directly, they usually get their information about those funds through their bookkeeping companies. At least 60 percent of SVMB’s new members join the insurance fund on the recommendation of such companies. The more pleased the bookkeepers are with a fund’s services, the more likely they are to recommend it to their own customers.

New members also are attracted to SVMB by the lower administrative costs the new system makes possible. For example, the rules for determining a member’s pension benefits are complicated, and calculating them is very time-consuming. A member might have started working for a large organization, then become self-employed, then switched from full-time to part-time work.

Decades’ worth of information follow members through their working lives, and all of it must be entered into their pension calculations. Storing this data in a form that is readily accessible reduces the time and expense of making those calculations. In fact, there has been a substantial reduction of paperwork in all aspects of the business.

For example, a customer who is approaching retirement age will automatically receive practical information about personal pension calculations. For a client changing from full-time to part-time self-employment, the system will automatically indicate which formalities have to be observed.

The chief benefit for the self-employed who are SVMB’s end-customers, is lower costs. Thanks to SVMB’s new IT infrastructure, the company’s members can get total social protection for the same price paid by other employees.

More time for more members

Decreasing the administrative burden on SVMB’s staff gives them more time to focus on attracting members and advising them personally.

By giving staff much better information about SVMB’s members, the new system also simplifies the daily management of the business. It keeps complete membership statistics on the company Web site, so staff can get an overview of the number of new members that have joined over any period of time. Staff can also get this information by region, which tells them where they have to increase their marketing and sales efforts. They can investigate why one region reacts differently from another to a marketing campaign. All of this information is now only a few clicks away.

An unexpected opportunity

Although implementing the new system was itself time-consuming - staff worked with CSC on the project on top of their normal day-to-day work - they were able to see progress daily, which motivated them to push forward. The complete system is not yet in place, but it already has benefited SVMB business so much that the company is thinking of making it the basis for a new business: marketing it to other social security funds.

Roland Waeyaert is the managing director of SVMB and Marc Botenberg is the CSC account executive on the SVMB project in Belgium.

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