de Jong & Laan
Scaling Financial Services: How de Jong & Laan Built a Future-Ready Backbone
- Standardized information management across the organization
- Shifted from office-centric to information-centric work
- Enabled secure, compliant access to information from anywhere
Use Case
Customer Information Management
Industry
Financial Services
Country
Netherlands
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Company Introduction
As one of the Netherlands' leading full-service financial services firms, de Jong & Laan serves clients across a wide range of industries, including construction, hospitality, agriculture, manufacturing, transport, healthcare, and recreation. With 35 offices and nearly 1,300 employees, the firm continues to grow while navigating an increasingly complex regulatory landscape.
To support that growth, de Jong & Laan needed a smarter way to manage business information. Employees required instant access to trusted information, regardless of where it was stored, while the organization needed to strengthen governance, simplify compliance, and enable seamless collaboration across teams. By implementing M-Files with the support of GeONE, de Jong & Laan transformed information management into a strategic business capability, creating a connected information foundation for future growth. As Business Analyst and Project Lead Hetty Teeselink summarized, "M-Files enables us to work compliantly, independent of time and location."
Key Challenges Before M-Files
As de Jong & Laan expanded, so did the complexity of its information landscape. The firm operates across many industries, each requiring specialized expertise and generating unique information management requirements. At the same time, increasing volumes of information and growing regulatory demands made it more difficult to manage client information effectively while supporting collaboration across the business.
Although the company had embraced digitalization for many years, its existing document management system could no longer keep pace with its evolving needs. "De Jong & Laan had been highly digitalized for quite some time, but there came a point when the document management system we were using no longer matched what we needed and wanted. In particular, the complexity of the information and the integration between the different systems no longer fully met our requirements," explained Hetty.
The organization also faced the challenge of balancing collaboration with strict regulatory compliance. Employees needed access to customer information based on their roles, while ensuring that unauthorized users could neither view nor modify sensitive information. As specialists increasingly worked together across departments and offices, the company needed an information platform that could securely connect people with the information they needed, wherever they were working.
Rather than simply replacing an aging document management system, de Jong & Laan was looking for a future-ready platform that could support the complete lifecycle of business information, integrate seamlessly with Microsoft technologies and the company's CRM system, and provide a single, trusted source of information across the organization.
"M-Files makes it even easier for our employees to work independently of time and location while remaining fully compliant. A signed version of a document or file is immediately available, together with all previous versions that show how it came into being. How transparent can you get?"
Hetty Teeselink, Business Analyst and Project Lead, de Jong & Laan
The M-Files Solution
Following a comprehensive evaluation of the market, M-Files stood out by offering a fundamentally different approach to information management. While many solutions still relied on traditional document management concepts, M-Files provided a metadata-driven platform capable of connecting information to its business context rather than to folders or locations.
According to Hetty, the organization wanted "one single point of truth" for information management: no duplicate content, no errors, information that was easy to search and quick to find, while preserving information in its original form, including unstructured content. M-Files met those requirements while also integrating seamlessly with the company's existing CRM platform.
Working closely with M-Files partner GeONE, de Jong & Laan implemented M-Files as its central information layer. Employees continue to work in familiar business applications, particularly the CRM system, while M-Files manages information behind the scenes through metadata, intelligent workflows, version control, and role-based permissions.
"The CRM is more or less the daily starting point for our work," Hetty explained. "Information is now transferred through intelligent workflows to M-Files, where it is managed. Employees can access customer files stored in M-Files directly from the CRM based on the associated permissions. The customer becomes the entry point to all relevant information."
The implementation also included the migration of existing information from the legacy system. At the same time, the organization took the opportunity to clean up fifteen years of historical files, ensuring that only information that still needed to be retained was migrated into the new environment.
As Hetty described the new process, "New information is transferred directly from the CRM to M-Files through specifically configured, automated workflows, where it is stored and made searchable using the platform's metadata technology."
The Results
Following a successful pilot involving users from multiple offices, M-Files became the information backbone for approximately 1,000 employees across the organization. Today, information is managed consistently across every office, enabling employees to collaborate using the latest and most accurate information while reducing administrative complexity.
The implementation also transformed the way employees access information. "Previously, we were more office-oriented, but that's no longer necessary," said Hetty. "The intelligence of the M-Files platform ensures that information is always accessible to employees who have the appropriate permissions—securely, reliably, and with confidence."
Although employees initially had to adjust to working without their own folder structures, the benefits quickly became apparent. "Of course, it took some getting used to that there were no longer any 'personal' folders, but thanks to the effectiveness of M-Files, that inconvenience quickly disappeared," Hetty recalled.
By putting information into context rather than organizing it around locations or folders, de Jong & Laan has improved collaboration, strengthened governance, and enabled employees to find trusted information faster, regardless of where they are working.
Looking Ahead
Building on the success of the implementation, de Jong & Laan plans to further digitize its business processes by integrating digital document signing with M-Files. Signed documents, previous versions, and the complete history of a document will be immediately available, providing even greater transparency while supporting secure hybrid work.
Looking ahead, Hetty believes this will further strengthen the organization's ability to work efficiently and compliantly. "M-Files makes it even easier for our employees to work independently of time and location while remaining fully compliant," she said. "A signed version of a document or file is immediately available, together with all previous versions that show how it came into being. How transparent can you get?"
Choosing GeONE
GeONE was selected as the implementation partner because of its deep M-Files expertise and business-focused approach. As Hetty explained, "It was clear from the very beginning that the people at GeONE had thoroughly mastered the M-Files software. They knew exactly what was possible and where adjustments could be made specifically for our situation. They thought along with us and were knowledgeable, pleasant to work with, and communicated clearly about what they were doing. They were also based in the Netherlands, so they were always close by."
Working closely with de Jong & Laan, GeONE delivered a smooth implementation that established M-Files as the organization's central information foundation, enabling employees to connect information with their work while supporting governance, compliance, and future digital transformation.
Partner
GeONE
GeONE consists of a group of enthusiasts who delight in information and document management challenges from organisations that want to move forward. Organisations that realise that data, documents and information play a defining role in their success. Tomorrow even more than today.
Where others are guided by software and its functionalities, for GeONE customers' business processes are the starting point. With intelligent solutions, GeONE optimizes those processes and align them with business objectives.
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