Challenge

VLAIO, Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship, is the point of contact of the Flemish government for all entrepreneurs in Flanders. Their challenge is to stimulate and support innovation and entrepreneurship, while contributing to a favourable business climate.

In addition to realising the policy note to make ‘Flanders Radically Digital’, VLAIO wants to grow into a customer-centric and data-driven organisation. Specifically, every entrepreneur should be able to digitally manage his/her application for all forms of subsidy and financing.

Background

VLAIO was created on 1 January 2016 following a merger between ‘Agentschap Ondernemen’ and ‘IWT’. Mergers inevitably bring about changes in the organisational structure. Regarding IT management, the necessary flexibility was important in order to respond rapidly to the changes in the structure of the work force.

No unit

VLAIO used multiple, non-integrated and dated applications for customer relationship and subsidy management. The applications for the various subsidies were handled differently.

Additional issues:

• the technology was dated
• the information was not centralised
• the system was complex, difficult to maintain and did not meet the standards of a modern, digital work environment
• companies were only able to submit or follow-up certain types of subsidies.

In other words, the way of working of the different merged teams urgently needed to be streamlined.

Solution

One tool

The development of one global application for customer relationship and information management that gives every single employee fast and efficient access to all the information he needs to work.

WHY MICROSOFT DYNAMICS 365?

It was a Partner Account Manager at Microsoft Belux who introduced Net IT to ‘Agentschap Ondernemen’, leading to a long-standing and close client relationship. When ‘Agentschap Ondernemen’ and ‘IWT’ merged, an external consulting firm was called in to give technological advice regarding the VLAIO workplace that had to be developed.

Microsoft Dynamics 365, combined with Office and SharePoint, proved to be the most suitable solution according to the independent technology expert.

VLAIO has made a conscious decision to use Microsoft Dynamics in the cloud:

• this avoids having to use a complex IT infrastructure
• all further development is now outsourced to Net IT

Advantages

This allows VLAIO to focus more on streamlining the operating processes of subsidy management and the development of an improved, centralised and uniform working environment (change management).

Design

The design is modular and flexible with a view to structural changes in the organisation and to be able to roll out support measures quickly.

Results

Applications

Configuration

With this system, VLAIO is able to intelligently configure online file management.

The VLAIO workplace includes a “form builder” that allows you to build complex and dynamic forms that synchronise the data to the CRM system; the process of subsidy management is started simultaneously and automatically.

Functionality

The application is able to process about 1400 subsidy applications simultaneously. A small selection of the functionalities:

• automatic e-mail notification
• advisory and decision-making committees can organise themselves for the assessment (awarding) of subsidies
• the payment schedules and instalments are generated automatically.

Integration

The application for customer relation and information management is integrated with VKBO (Enriched Crossroads bank for Enterprises) and Graydon. This gives VLAIO direct access to the latest data of each company, allowing for the formulation of financial analyses including the strengths and weaknesses.

The budget management is linked to OraFin, the financial system of the Flemish government: payments are controlled from within the CRM system.

The management system is integrated with ACM/IDM (the central user and access management of all IT applications within the Flemish government), ArcGIS, Exchange and Documents Core Pack.

Return on investment

Time saving

Net IT has devised and developed an advanced, technical solution to integrate dozens of different processes for subsidy management into one information management system. The functional operation of the subsidy management is highly adaptable per file form.

With this modularity at the heart of the technical design, a new type of subsidy file can now be rolled out within two weeks versus 6 months of development in the past. In other words, the technical solution that Net IT has provided makes it possible to implement, maintain and respond to changes in the organisation at least 1000% faster than before.

Smart

VLAIO now has a centralised system for a more intelligent and customer-centric way of working. There is a 360° view of every company and every subsidy file. The functional modules include relationship management, advice management, meeting management, payment management, document management and events management.

Future proof

The VLAIO workplace allows everyone to work more productively: through the automation of administrative tasks (document generation, automatic e-mails) on the one hand, and automatic process management (to do lists are automatically generated) on the other hand.

Growth

The new VLAIO workplace currently facilitates 13 different forms of subsidy (13 different management processes of 13 different types of support in one tool). In 2018, 1207 files were submitted in a 100% digital manner. .

Conclusion

The VLAIO project is a prime example of efficient management and is undoubtedly inspiring for other organisations that offer and manage subsidies within the government.