Compass Group

“We do everything we can to ensure that customers and their employees are happy. Our customer relationships are, therefore, almost always long-term. Also because our services often occupy an important place in organizations. A company restaurant, for example, is the central meeting place where we want to create the feeling of coming home and relaxation. That does not work if a different organization is always on duty.
Moreover, it requires the necessary investment in advance to set up a company restaurant firmly. Knowledge and experience to ensure that the operation runs smoothly is a requirement. ” Compass Group saw great potential for improvement in the process of starting up new customers. Compass Group wants to copy successes in the start-up of one customer and possible in the next.

Previously, an Excel file was used in which a checklist of the activities, points for attention, and learnings were included, and the status was closely monitored. This was a time-consuming task that entailed a sensitivity to errors and sometimes exceeded its goal in terms of keeping an overview. In an unfortunate case, this could lead to a bad start to the collaboration. At the end of 2012, Compass Group decided to further professionalize this in order to gain more control over the start-up process. “It was important that employees were better guided through the start-up process, that the division of tasks and roles was mapped out for everyone and that everyone would base themselves on the same data,” says Tim.

The first project in collaboration with FlowFabric was a fact. Based on the application development platform Mendix, the start-up form (OSF) application was developed to streamline and accelerate new customers’ start-up. An extensive number of tasks in different domains were accommodated here. From the design of the kitchen to the IT infrastructure. From the purchase of computers and printers to POS systems. But also think of associated ordering and delivery schedules for food and other supplies.

“The OSF application goes further than automating the process, is the checklist in Excel. In addition to the status of tasks, the application applies to the layer. Depending on the responsibility of an employee, they can view or edit a task. Besides, the application offers a signaling function. If information is missing and a deadline is approaching, the employee is alerted. Every employee now knows where he stands,” explains Tim. The application also generates standard e-mails, which saves time and reduces repetitive work. For example, with every new customer or location, suppliers must be notified. Thanks to the automatically generated e-mails, this has become one push of a button. The start-up process of new customers is now much more efficient.

As a result, customers are started up faster, and the chance of errors is reduced. Innovation tastes like more!

What started as an application to create customers smoothly resulted in a thirst for optimization. Compass Group treats each customer individually, but processes can be organized more smartly. The next process that was streamlined was time tracking. Tim: “The money is actually earned at the locations, but the administration around turnover and costs occurs at the service office. Location managers had their hands full to provide the head office with the correct information and ensure that it ran smoothly. ”

Forms were completed in Excel to keep track of the hours worked at the branches. However, this was a time-consuming job that required a lot of knowledge of collective labor agreements and hour codes. “Our employees work under five collective labor agreements, namely: corporate catering, catering, institutional catering, educational catering, and cleaning. A branch manager must be able to enter the correct collective labor agreement and understand the hour codes that indicate whether it concerns normal working hours, additional work, atv days, et cetera. ” The Excel lists were then mailed to the head office.