Client story | Lely

Introduction

Lely is an international family company in the agricultural sector, founded in 1948. With 1600 employees active in 45 countries, it currently has an annual revenue of 615 million Euros. The goal of Lely is to make the lives of dairy farmers easier with innovative solutions and targeted services. They offer solutions for almost all work in the cow barn: from milking to cleaning. Lely provides advice on the intelligent organisation of the dairy farm with the use of management systems. They are guided and inspired by the vision, wishes and choices of their customers. Their innovations have one goal: to make life easier for farmers worldwide and to work together towards a sustainable, profitable and enjoyable future in the agricultural sector.

Challenge

Lely operates in 45 different countries, which means a widespread banking network and many bank accounts. The management of the different banks and bank accounts led to a complicated process for Lely. Excel was initially used for cash visibility, but this led to a challenging and complex situation. In addition, approving payments in different bank portals meant having to log in multiple times. Adding the need to approve each of these transactions was a time-consuming and arduous process. For this reason, Lely sought a solution that could grow with them and provide customer-specific guidance in improving their visibility and payments.

Innovation

Different providers were considered in the search for a solution. It quickly became evident that Cobase was the most suitable solution for Lely. According to Raymon: "In contrast to other providers who offer a standard package, Cobase is flexible and customer-oriented."

In addition, Cobase displays similarities with Lely in terms of philosophy. Raymon quotes: "Cobase is an innovator that easily adapts and develops with the customer." The Cobase solution offers Lely the opportunity to grow and the Cobase team can add value to the processes Lely wants to improve, leading to efficiency and resulting in saving time and costs.

Secure cash management

The main issue that led to a challenging situation is solved within Cobase through use of a central dashboard. According to Raymon: "The central dashboard provides an overview of all banks and bank accounts." In addition, payments often have to be transferred manually from the ERP to the various bank portals. Raymon states: "The automatic transmission of batch files from the ERP system to Cobase removes a step in the process and thus the possibility of mistakes, which helps to reduce risks."

A significant advantage is the time savings it brings Raymon and the colleagues who approve payments in their work. "I like to check payments in detail, but this is a time-consuming activity. With Cobase, the payment approval process saves me a lot of time." This results in Raymon being able to focus on what he considers to be important and, in doing so, to put more focus on limiting mistakes and risks.

Recently, Lely expanded its scope, adding the FX module. Raymon quotes: "The integration of FX brokers in Cobase benefits Lely in its FX exposure management. " Lely would like to take the next step together with Cobase to implement the Cobase in-house banking module. This will save Lely the costs that the various internal bookings currently entail. Lely plans to use the in-house banking module of Cobase in the future to deliver substantial benefits in terms of cost savings and efficiency. Cobase continues to develop and listen to the wishes of its customers.

In the future, Lely would like to use the Cobase cash pool functionality. Raymon states: "Maintaining different cash pools is a time-consuming and challenging process. With the future Cash pooling module within Cobase, this will be easier and more user-friendly to maintain."

"Lely plans to use the in-house banking module of Cobase in the future to deliver substantial benefits in terms of cost savings and efficiency."

Raymon Danser