Dé Post (37) is the director of the logistics services provider H.N. Post & Zn in Pijnacker.
“In the transport sector, many processes are still paper-based. Waybills and timesheets sometimes lie around untouched for weeks, and drivers can easily spend 20 minutes a day filling in and sending their documentation by hand. For that reason, we set ourselves the challenge of requiring all our drivers to work completely paper-free. Digitalisation ties in perfectly with our core values: sustainable, flexible and reliable. At the start of 2017, we developed an app for our drivers that enables them to generate a digital waybill with a single touch of a button.”
Faster invoicing
“From our app, the waybill is automatically transmitted to Transfollow, a reliable and legally watertight system. Transfollow sends out an automatic message to all stakeholders, including the dealer we are working for, who can then speed up the invoicing process. Unfortunately, things do not always work that way in practice. Companies that have to sign for receipt of the goods have no vested interest in this. They operate their own work processes and prefer to sign on paper simply because that is what they are used to doing.”
Change
“Any process of change is difficult. And that is a shame because it means we cannot move forward. I believe that government has an important role to play here. The advantages of digitalisation are already clear in the services provided by government: for example, turnover tax and wage tax are increasingly automated. We are also currently involved in a trial for the digital processing of vehicle tax. Instead of having to copy everything from invoices, we now work with an XML file. And that too ties in with our continuous search for improved efficiency.”