A successful pilot project for Renault Netherlands at Stam Groep leads to more - Expense Reduction Analysts

Expense Reduction Analysts has been working with Renault SA in France for a number of years. Thanks to this excellent partnership, Expense Reduction Analysts is now working for Renault branches in other European countries. Expense Reduction Analysts consultant Chris Wilgehof was named Customer Manager for the Netherlands in this cross-border rollout, and contacted Renault Netherlands for further implementation information.

Chris Wilgehof: “For the pilot project, we selected three suitable companies from all the Renault dealers in the Netherlands, Stam being the largest”. Stam Groep has nine Renault branches in the centre of the Netherlands and also represents the brands Opel and Dacia. In addition, Stam Groep has three petrol stations, four car repair centres, a lease company and an insurance company. Vehicle rental, financing and fleet management also form part of the services offered. Financial Director Richard Hoekstra appeared to be very interested in the concept of Expense Reduction Analysts.
 
After a broad inventory of possible cost savings, projects were initiated in three areas: telecommunications, office supplies and factory consumables. The telecommunications project began with deciphering a jigsaw: first of all, consultant Kees de Dreu reduced a complex series of telecoms contracts to one clear contract. “There were approximately 30 separate contracts, all with the same provider but each with its own price agreements. These came with the same number of associated invoices”, explains Kees de Dreu. He looked at what all these contracts entailed and drew up a clear picture, rendering the telecoms administration for all branches fully transparent. Tariff negotiations then followed in the context of this new situation. Ultimately, Stam stayed with the same provider – which is what Richard Hoekstra preferred – but with much better conditions. This project has resulted in savings of 25.9% in call charges over the past six months.
 
But that wasn’t all. Together with the Stam systems manager, the Expense Reduction Analysts consultant visited every branch for three days to check how many telephone lines were entering the various premises and what the function of these lines was. “Not an easy task, as many of these buildings are old and the cabling difficult to find. We also had a bit of a scare: just when we were busy at one of the branches, a fault occurred with one of the payment terminals at a petrol station. Luckily, it became clear that it had nothing to do with us and the fault was quickly resolved”, says Kees de Dreu with a smile. It transpired that a total of 72 subscriptions that were no longer functioning were still being paid for and that this situation had endured for years. We quickly rectified this problem, saving Stam another 14,000 euros per year. Expense Reduction Analysts also discovered that Stam had been paying for seven telephone lines that did not even enter any of the premises, which resulted in a substantial refund.
 
Stam had little hope in identifying any savings when it came to office supplies; just before Expense Reduction Analysts arrived, the company had signed a favourable new contract with a large national office supplies company through a purchasing organisation operating in the vehicle sector. Stam did not expect negotiations to lead to an even better deal, but consultant Hans Touw was able to save an average of 25%, and for office supplies more specifically, he even managed to save 31.4%.
 
The Expense Reduction Analysts consultants involved agree that these brilliant results are also due to the attitude of the Financial Director: “Richard Hoekstra makes it clear what he expects from experts, but then he completely relies on their expertise, which is very satisfying. And he likes to keep things simple. When the provider wanted 31 signatures to transfer 30 old contracts to one new contract, he said, ‘If I have to sign more than once, it will be a signature to terminate all contracts.’
“That’s true!” says Richard Hoekstra. “We are very satisfied with work of Expense Reduction Analysts, both in terms of their methods and the reliability and input of their consultants. Our administration is much easier and the substantial savings we were promised at the time have been exceeded.”

Thanks to the success of this pilot scheme, Expense Reduction Analysts has now started work with other Renault dealers in the Netherlands.