6 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - MARCH 2017

Assured of excellent services

How insurance company Generali has been
successful with TOPdesk for over a decade
Text: Luke van Velthoven Photography: Aad Hoogendoorn
 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - MARCH 2017 7

This Italian insurance company has been active in the Netherlands

for over 145 years. And theyve been successfully working with
TOPdesk for over 10. Lets have a look at how TOPdesk helps
Generali make sure all IT and FM tasks are going smoothly. How
do you keep a tool alive and popular within an organization for
over a decade?

Generali Nederland has 230 employees and provides indemnity, income

life and pension insurance for consumers and businesses alike. Its part
of the Generali Group, which is active in over 140 countries. About 1 in
4 European citizens are Generali customers.
Never heard of Generali before? Most of Generalis customers get
their insurance through a financial intermediary. But about two years
ago Generali started selling insurances directly to consumers through
their website and specialized customer advisors. Manon Krijnsen,
manager customer and market communication, explains: We dont
have tv commercials or large advertising campaigns. Our customers
find us online or through word-of-mouth.

Integrated in the organization

We only use TOPdesk at our Dutch office, but everybody is familiar
with the tool there. Its become such an integral part of the
organization that employees are often surprised to learn that its
provided by another organization. They think its our own tool. This
is hardly surprising: employees can request almost anything to do
with IT or facilities through our self-service portal. From help with
a computer-related problem to asking to work overtime. Because we
need to have security in the building when people are at work.
Even Ristorali, our own restaurant, is connected to TOPdesk. On top
of that Generali has its own brand of wine from Venetian vineyards
thats only sold at our company itself. You can order it with a simple
click. For office drinks, for example, or you can just take the wine home.
You can pick up your order the next day.

Mohamed Anaflous, TOPdesk functional manager and

Manon Kijnsen, communications manager
From office drinks to data leaks
Whether you want to book the bar for drinks or safely report a data
leak, at Generali you can use the TOPdesk self-service portal for almost
anything. Krijnsen: Last week we didnt have hot water for a while.
Its easy to let people see the status of such an issue. Much easier than
emailing everybody updates all the time.
Mohamed Anaflous, who manages TOPdesk for Generali, adds:
And to close all incidents about the water at once, we use the major
incidents functionality of course. Before we started using TOPdesk,
we had to print cards for every incident. The whole process is much
smoother now, especially because we no longer use all these different
systems and instead have all our services in a single tool.
A smooth operation
Krijnsen: We register almost everything in TOPdesk. After a request has
been taken care of, the person who filed it is always asked for feedback
on the process and its outcome. You can simply click a thumbs-up or
thumbs-down button. Employees can easily contact our operators if
theyre not happy. Anaflous: We set up the feedback system ourselves
with HTTP requests and email. The whole process automatic now.
There are other reasons why Generalis processes make for a smooth
operation. Krijnsen: We send a lot of letters to our customers, like
welcome letters or letters concerning their insurance papers. Most of
these letters are sent automatically. If theres something wrong with a
letter, or if we want to improve the format, TOPdesk sends a request. IT
then changes the letter or format, so everybody can use the new version.
A clear division
Anaflous: We have about sixty operators in TOPdesk, most of them from
IT. Theyre in different groups, like application management
and application development. And of course there are groups for
facilities as well. With this clear division, requests are always sent to the
right operator.
We get a great variety of requests through TOPdesk. From printer
malfunctions to feature requests for certain applications. Do you need a
new app altogether? You can request that too. We take a look at what you
want to accomplish, what we already have, and what licences we need.
This way we make sure our employees never work with different tools
that serve the same purpose.

Great set-up, great collaboration

Anaflous: At Generali, weve got a good set-up for TOPdesk. Weve
been working with test, acceptance and production environments for
some time. And our bespoke work is always ready in time for the next
update. This has been going well for the past ten years and were still
happy with the set-up of our tool. Some modules are used by multiple
departments, like incident management and contract management.
This has been going well for
Others, like change management, are the domain of IT. the past ten years and were
We do have to keep in mind that changing settings can affect
multiple departments. And we have to keep up our CMDB in asset
still happy with the set-up
management. But thats the great thing about our set-up: we keep of our tool.
everything up-to-date, for example with HTTP requests that warn us
when licences are about to end. And we register everything. This way
you can keep track of your tool and processes all the time.