“Killer App” Gets a Positive Reception from PostNL
Employees Are Loving Concur® Expense and the SAP® Concur Mobile App
PostNL is a leading European postal service provider. PostNL employs approximately 46,000 people in 13 countries. Half of these employees are responsible for the delivery of approximately 9 million letters and 550,000 packages each day.
PostNL Streamlines Expense Management with Concur® Expense and the SAP® Concur Mobile App
Have you received a letter or package in the Netherlands? We’re willing to bet it was delivered by one of the over 20,000 delivery people employed by Koninklijke PostNL B.V. Until recently, the organization’s expense claims process was fragmented. It was partially automated and partially carried out using internal forms. Different processes were used for different cost categories. As a company that uses hypermodern IT solutions to help sort and deliver post as quickly as possible, PostNL believed the process could be simplified. Having launched a cloud-only strategy in 2013, the company decided to transfer its business to the Concur® Expense solution last year. All employees now submit their expense claims using the SAP® Concur mobile app – and they always have up-to-date information about the status of each request. Plus, expense claims – which used to be spread out over multiple departments – are now centrally managed by HR.
Speedy Implementation
Jeroen Sanders, a business consultant at PostNL, is responsible for the company’s cloud HR IT road map. Together with project leader Ineke Bonder and a small project team, he was able to realize the implementation quickly. “Our departure point for the design of new HR processes and new cloud systems has always been our employees,” he explains. “What’s really going to make them happy? Accurate pay slips, a simple process for leave applications, and the quick processing of expense claims are extremely important to them.”
“Our decision to use Concur Expense as our expense claims system was an easy one,” Sanders continues. “Creating our own expense claims
system does not make us a better postal service. This is why we were on the lookout for a userfriendly solution – one that is compatible with our cloud strategy. SAP Concur solutions are leading in this field. Furthermore, we were already using multiple SAP SuccessFactors® solutions and we felt positive about the integration options.”
Our postal workers spend all their time outdoors. Thanks to Concur Expense, they can now submit their expense claims on the go using the app.
Ineke Bonder, Project Leader for SAP Concur Solutions, Koninklijke PostNL B.V.
PostNL began the integration of Concur Expense in August of 2016 and went live three months later. “Of all the cloud modules we have implemented over the past years, Concur Expense was definitely the easiest,” explains Bonder. “We were always able to contact our program manager. He was very service oriented. And, if we couldn’t resolve the issue ourselves, the SAP Concur
solution team would always help us find a fix.”
A pilot project for Concur Expense with 500 employees was launched in November. No training was required. Bonder explains, “We sent an e-mail and some background information explaining how everything worked. A short stepby-step guide can also be found on the intranet. That was it.” The new expense claims system was launched for all employees in May of 2017, following the successful completion of the pilot. “Some people needed time to adjust, but we expected that. Not everyone adapts well to change”, acknowledges Bonder. “Nevertheless, people were generally positive about Concur Expense.”
A simpler, quicker, and clearer expense claims process
In the past, PostNL used four different forms for submitting expense claims. “We had a form for business expenses, personal expenses, foreign travel, and educational expenses”, explains Sanders. “Now employees can submit all their claims through one user-friendly app. They can launch the app on the go and submit claims without accessing a PC.” He goes on to explain how this also benefits both the IT and HR departments. “The fact that all the data can be found in one place makes it easier to perform analyses and further improve the process.”
PostNL quickly noticed results following the implementation. IT management costs dropped and the organization was able to achieve backoffice savings from no longer having to copy 12,000 claims forms each year. The expense claims process is also simpler, clearer, and faster. “Simplifying the expense claims process using a killer app like the SAP Concur mobile app is guaranteed to improve employee satisfaction,” says Sanders. “Surveys indicate that satisfaction for user-friendliness has increased significantly. In the past, employees had no idea what happened to submitted claims forms. All they could do was hope their supervisor would approve the claim before their next paycheck. Now they can immediately see how much they will be reimbursed and how this amount is calculated when submitting their claim. The approval process is also quick and simple with the app. Managers just have to add a check mark.”
Take Your Expense Claims Process to the Next Level
Do you want to increase employee satisfaction by launching a faster, simpler expense claims process? And would you like more insight into spending patterns within your organization? We are happy to show you how you can achieve results within your organization using Concur Expense.
Contact your SAP representative or visit concur.nl for more information today.
About SAP Concur
SAP Concur solutions take companies of all sizes and stages beyond automation to a completely connected spend management solution encompassing travel, expense, invoicing, compliance, and risk. For more than 20 years, these leading, innovative solutions have kept customers a step ahead by delivering time-saving tools, connected spending data, and a dynamic ecosystem of diverse partners and apps. User-friendly and business ready, SAP Concur solutions unlock powerful insights that help businesses reduce complexity and see spending clearly so they can manage it proactively.
