January is the perfect time to look back on everything we have experienced, discovered and achieved over the last 12 months and – especially after such a challenging year - to look forward to what the new year will bring.
Five clients and employees reflect on what was an unprecedented year, and look forward to a brighter future.
What was your most important lesson learned in 2020?
For me, the key lesson was to continuously look for ways to connect, both personally and professionally. That’s very important for me, especially during the current pandemic.
How did the coronavirus pandemic affect your work last year?
Surprisingly, despite the coronavirus outbreak, the mortgage market was booming in 2020. That means more revenue now but, as everyone knows, what goes around comes around. ‘The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining,’ as the saying goes. For HDN, that means focusing a lot of effort on launching the new platform and onboarding the early adopters – and accelerating a number of existing projects.
What is your top priority for 2021?
We have plenty of goals for 2021, including:
- To connect all parties in the Dutch mortgage sector to our new platform
- To connect external (public-sector) sources to our mortgage processes so that we can improve the efficiency of those processes
- For the estate agent, advisor, mortgage provider, solicitor and cadastre all to be able to use the digitalised version of the sales contract (‘Zorgeloos Vastgoed’ scheme)
- To introduce high-quality digital identity in the mortgage chain (‘Goedidee’ pilot in conjunction with Cleverbase and NVM)
- To standardise mortgage management for advisors and mortgage providers alike, including for example complex transactions in the case of divorce (discharge from liability)
What was your most important lesson learned in 2020?
That to accelerate the pace of innovation, it’s important to also look beyond the borders of your own sector – especially now.
How did the coronavirus pandemic affect your work last year?
I’ve missed the ‘water cooler conversations’ and face-to-face meetings, of course, but in actual fact everything carries on online. And that’s going pretty well, but you sometimes lack effective tools to work remotely with external partners, such as in workshops. We have successful switched to livestreams and webinars. I am proud of the resilience of the insurance industry. Resilience is also the key theme of our Annual event on 7 October 2021. Save the date and join us.
What is your top priority for 2021?
To further modernise the distribution framework and to accelerate the digital distribution in the insurance sector across all channels. The collaboration with InsurTech start-ups will play a key role in that.
What was your most important lesson learned in 2020?
In his book called A Promised Land, Obama says that not all problems have a clear solution. I think that’s my most important lesson learned in a year in which we were confronted with extremely complex problems that required urgent action. The solution isn’t always pretty but it’s what has to be done – and there’s always time for analysis and fine-tuning later. I hope that we can carry this mindset with us into the future and apply it to other major problems.
How did the coronavirus pandemic affect your work last year?
The day-to-day work is continuing online and I must say that it’s working pretty well for our INNOPAY projects. As a team, we made a conscious effort to test and familiarise ourselves with all the various tooling. In fact, if you have lots of appointments on the same day, Teams is a really efficient way of working. But as many other people have said, there’s a sense of something missing. For me, that ‘something’ is being out and about, having new adventures and having fun with colleagues and customers – I really miss all that.
What is your top priority for 2021?
In recent years, we’ve been working hard to extend INNOPAY’s service offering, not only by continuously developing new knowledge domains but also by looking at sectors and companies that we haven’t worked with before. I am keen to continue this and to work with our customers to explore how our vision, knowledge and services can help them to achieve their objectives. Examples of this include the Open Insurance Monitor that we’ve developed based on our Open Banking expertise, and our approach to shaping collaborative partnerships that we're now using to help the AI Coalition.
What was your most important lesson learned in 2020?
That social contact in the (virtual) workplace plays a crucial role in my job satisfaction.
How did the coronavirus pandemic affect your work last year?
I normally have lots of meetings and I see a lot of my business contacts face to face. It took me a while to figure out how to maintain a similar level of contact in the new circumstances. To be honest, I hope that we can go back to the ‘old normal’ one day.
What is your top priority for 2021?
I hope to be able to meet as many people as possible in person again! I’m really looking forward to that!
What was your most important lesson learned in 2020?
In 2020 I started as the secretary of the Digiteam, responsible for rolling out digiGO – the national collaborative programme within the construction industry to accelerate the digitalisation of the built environment.
The coronavirus crisis eliminated any last remaining doubts about the need for digitalisation in the built environment. There are still many limitations to the way in which organisations work together digitally and share data. In 2020, however, the coronavirus pandemic highlighted an urgent need to digitalise and to continue to collaborate. Cross-organisational data sharing is essential. Besides that, digitalisation is crucial to enable the sector to tackle the huge challenges it faces, such as the nitrogen issue, PFAS and the housing shortage.
Over the past year, I’ve learned that the sector is indeed able to work together quickly and effectively. A joint declaration of the commitment to work together, called ‘Samen doorbouwen aan Nederland’ was drawn up in a short space of time. In fact, the number of jobs in the construction industry has increased compared with before the pandemic, so there is good cause to be optimistic about the future and digitalisation of the sector.
How did the coronavirus pandemic affect your work last year?
Although I was already fairly used to attending meetings remotely before the pandemic, the impact was actually greater than I expected. Almost all meetings and events were held online last year, which required more preparation and more discipline from everyone. Besides that, I’m sure that everyone will agree that it’s sometimes difficult to hold in-depth discussions.
I have many contacts within digiGO and the construction sector that I’ve never actually met in person. We’ve only seen each other online or by phone, but luckily with a bit of extra effort we’ve always managed to arrange to talk. After all, there are numerous ways of staying in touch nowadays. So I definitely spend a lot more time on my laptop!
What is your top priority for 2021?
For digiGO, the focus in 2021 will be on the two programme lines: 1) DSGO and 2) Learning & Changing. DSGO will provide the agreements (guiding infrastructure) that will make it possible to accelerate digitalisation. Learning & Changing will support the change process (soft skills) necessary to further digitalise the construction industry.
Both of these developments will increasingly take shape this year and we expect to see the first concrete results. As the secretary of the Digiteam, my personal goal is to align the two developments and to keep things running smoothly.