ACTIAM is a fund and asset manager that offers a complete range of investment funds and investment solutions. The team of 130 people at ACTIAM has a strong focus on responsible investments, managing assets worth €56 billion (at the end of June, 2016). They use an integrated IT landscape with Simcorp Dimension as the core application. The entire landscape is running in our Mission Critical Cloud. Marco Verstegen, Head of Change Management at ACTIAM Asset Management, explains why they chose Schuberg Philis.

“In asset management, we face many changes. Companies are under pressure to reduce costs, while legislation and regulations impose tighter requirements on operations. The end users themselves are more demanding with regards to the functionality of the user environment. You are forced, as an asset manager, to take a good look at the operating and business model. At ACTIAM we should focus on our core business and we must be able to rely on those to whom we outsource tasks.

The engineers and developers from Schuberg Philis work with our functional managers and business consultants every day, as partners in a united team. Two days a week, they are physically present here. If something is wrong, the team is close on the ball. They have to keep a rather complex application landscape running. Being around will keep the lines of communication short, giving us the ability to create a stable run and an agile change environment. This gives us more opportunities for innovation.

People that haven’t worked with Schuberg Philis, often assume that they are expensive. That’s especially the case among those that haven’t looked into it properly. If I may speak for myself, at ACTIAM I have experienced the systemic effects and added value of working with them, even though these are difficult to quantify. For example, by reducing our time to market, we increase our competitive edge. We have the headspace to focus on change, because our run is fully under control and errors are minimized.

We do have a customer-supplier relationship, but it feels more like a team of colleagues: each player has a role and you ensure that all the required capacities are in the squad. And we share a passion for quality and compelling challenges. By focusing on change, we have created an environment that appeals to both my colleagues as well as the people from Schuberg Philis. For engineers with such a mentality and high level output, a good reward is a logical consequence instead of a goal in itself. Better footballers cost more, but they also create the openings that help you to win the match.