TKB modernizes its legacy and unlocks new innovation potential

About TKB

Trust Krediet Beheer (TKB) is a debt collection agency that manages outstanding invoices for both large and small businesses. What started in an attic has grown into a well-known name in credit management. TKB offers a full suite of services around debt collection, outsourcing, and secondment.

“We’ve grown by helping our clients manage their cases with care, always considering even their most specific requests,” says Lex Schilder, Process Manager at TKB.

To support a wide range of process flows—letters, phone calls, emails, SMS—and all those tailored customer requirements, TKB built its own IT system. This allowed them to customize email layouts or apply debt collection fees in different ways per client. To manage all this, TKB has its own team of experienced developers who know the system inside and out.

IT as a bottleneck for innovation

The downside of a custom-built system? Every single change requires a developer. Whether it’s tweaking a workflow or updating email copy—IT needs to step in. “Our IT department is increasingly becoming a bottleneck,” Lex says. “Their time is limited, and good new hires are hard to find. Because they spend most of their time on daily maintenance, there’s hardly any room left to develop new features that would actually benefit our clients.”

One example: the growing demand for API integrations. “More and more clients want real-time access to our systems—for instance, to check the status of an invoice themselves. We want to provide that, but building these features takes too long right now. Our IT colleagues simply don’t have the time.”

Another pain point: each client and every workflow has its own piece of code. “That makes us flexible and customer-focused—each client gets a tailored process—but it also leads to chaos and inefficiency. It would be smarter to use standard templates clients can choose from. Custom work should be the exception, not the rule.”

This complexity also makes it hard for employees to get a clear overview. Since all process knowledge lives in IT, sales staff often don’t know what exactly they can promise clients—or how much effort a specific request will take. “And for new hires, the system is even harder to grasp. Onboarding takes a lot of time,” says Lex.

Too headstrong for off-the-shelf software

TKB realized it was time for a new system and, together with IT partner Incentro, started looking for a solution. “There’s plenty of off-the-shelf software on the market—even for collection agencies—but we’re too headstrong for that,” Lex admits. “We were worried we wouldn’t be able to meet our clients’ specific needs.”

That’s why TKB chose legacy modernization, supported by Incentro. “There are multiple platforms out there for this, but only Thinkwise met all our requirements. Many platforms are fine for supporting a single workflow, but too limited if you’re juggling multiple complex flows like we are.”

Thinkwise is purpose-built for modernizing large, complex core systems.
“And it allows you to easily develop new functionality—which was essential for us. Besides upgrading our existing plan-to-pay processes, we want to continue launching new services, just like we’ve always done.”

Data architecture unlocks new opportunities

“One major benefit is that we won’t need IT to manage workflows or make system changes—our business teams can handle that themselves. That means we can respond to client needs much faster, and other departments won’t be stuck waiting for IT availability,” Lex explains.

At the same time, developers will gain time to focus on real system innovation. “This makes innovation more predictable and manageable in terms of costs—especially since we can rely on Incentro’s developers when needed.”

Another advantage: the user-friendliness of the Thinkwise platform—for both employees and clients.“There’s more consistency in the interfaces, and soon we’ll be able to work with templates. That makes the available options more transparent and allows us to set up environments for new clients much more quickly.”

The modern architecture also opens the door to data analytics and AI. “Because all data will be stored in a structured way, we’ll be able to analyze which actions are most effective for which case types. Sometimes a phone call is more effective than a letter, for instance. These insights allow us to optimize workflows—and since we can easily adapt them, we’ll become more efficient and effective as an organization.”