Alpro Soya builds lasting client relationships with insight from Dun

CUSTOMER STORY
Alpro Soya builds lasting client relationships with
insight from Dun & Bradstreet
Alpro is the European pioneer and market leader in the creation of food
products and drinks made with soy and other plant-based ingredients.
Alpro has devoted itself to making products in a healthy, sustainable way
for more than 30 years. Products that are not just delicious, but that also
retain the unique nutritional value of soy beans.
Alpro has production operations in four European countries (Belgium, the
Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom) and has four sales offices.
Its headquarters are located in Ghent. Alpro employs more than 800
people in Europe and has an extensive distribution network.
“At Alpro, creating lasting relationships with our clients is one of the
cornerstones of our corporate strategy,” said Elke Segers, Commercial Accounting
& Controlling Manager at Alpro. “Knowledge about our clients and gaining an
insight into their situation provides our company with the support it needs to
continue to build and maintain lasting relationships.”
Elke Segers
THE CHALLENGE
One of the main priorities of the credit control team is to gain an insight into the financial health of our clients. In the past, this insight was based
on reports we requested from D&B on an ad hoc basis. This provided us with valuable information; but not on an ongoing basis. We were
looking for an efficient and structured way of monitoring the situation on a daily basis.
THE SOLUTION
We decided on Dun & Bradstreet’s Portfolio Manager. This online analysis program merges the information about money
outstanding from clients with information in the D&B database. It then analyses the results. This provides a clear overview of the
status of our portfolio of clients at any point in time.
With Portfolio Manager, companies are able to gain insight into the risk allocation within their portfolio and they can easily identify
the most high-risk clients in the blink of an eye. The tool exposes the total risks within the company structure and estimates the
commercial risk for the following 12 months which is especially helpful for creating management reports.
HOW IT WORKS
R E S U LT S A N D R O I
Although, we use Portfolio Manager several times a year for
our reporting, the major value we find is in using the tool on a
day-to-day basis. We can:
• Monitor our clients more efficiently
• Decide on the actions we need to take. For example:
1. Which clients need to be sent reminders immediately?
2. Should we block certain deliveries?
3. Should we extend special payment deadlines?
These are the concrete questions that the credit control team can
now answer thanks to the Portfolio Manager. The program even
provides credit limit recommendations and monitors any changes
identified in the situation of clients, sending us a notification so we
can react immediately and take the necessary measures to avoid
any damage,” added Elke Segers.
“We were looking for an efficient tool to support the day-to-day
operations of the credit control team, and that is precisely what
the Portfolio Manager offers us,” said Elke Segers. “Thanks to
the efficient structure of the dashboard, we have a permanent
and complete overview of all the parameters that we need.
D&B adapted the structure of our own database (by internal
sales organization, type of client and country), which makes
it additionally handy. The alerts that we receive when there
are changes in the situation of a certain client save us time
and offer us the guarantee that we do not overlook important
information. With exceptional cases we like to have additional
information so that we can analyze this in greater depth. In
such instances, we ask D&B for a complete one-off company
information report. We always do that by the way whenever
new clients come on board,” concluded Elke Segers.
PA R T N E R S H I P W I T H D & B
“We have total confidence in the partnership we have had for years with Dun &
Bradstreet. And they have proved -- yet again -- that they truly earned our
confidence. When setting up the Portfolio Manager, D&B offered us the support we
needed to link our client database to the D&B database because this was a big task.
As an extra service they offered us a series of in-house training courses. This was a
highly welcome because even though Portfolio Manager is a very user-friendly tool,
the training courses gave us a better understanding of the range of possibilities
offered by the product so we can get the most out of it.”
Elke Segers
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ABOUT DUN & BRADSTREET
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