Future proof business operations

Since PGGM faces many new developments, we have to be ready and flexible. We do this by creating an agile and manageable organization, while maintaining grip on limiting execution costs by (product-oriented) control and by ensuring healthy business operations.

Impact of the new pension agreement

The new pension system will bring major challenges and changes to PGGM Investments and our clients. Our clients will transition to a new pension scheme by January 1, 2027 at the latest, and have to make choices regarding the reform in 2022 and 2023.  Many business operations need to be adapted in order to ensure excellent execution within the new pension system. The project ‘Feniks’ prepares PGGM and PGGM Investments for these changes.  
Feniks has identified potential consequences for our investment chain and multiple in-depth research questions. Questions which are related to the potential impact of the reform on investment allocation, asset management administration and the cooperation between PGGM Pension Administration and PGGM Investments. One of the preliminary conclusions after analysing these questions is that the impact of NPC (new pension contract) on PGGM investments seems limited, whereas the impact of WVP (verbeterde premieregeling) seems more substantial.  
The answering of these questions provides us with input for in-depth discussions about the new pension scheme. However, as long as the regulation does not have an approved status and the preferences of our clients are not fully determined, it is impossible to define definite future state solutions for PGGM Investments. In the meanwhile, we work with a set of assumptions during the current analysis phase. In 2022, PGGM Investments will continue with our preparation initiatives on the pension reform, which will result in a proposal for the implementation of the pension reform in the next coming years. 

Future-proof PGGM Investments implementation

Our ‘Future-proof PGGM Investments (in Dutch Toekomstvast VB)’ programme which has been running since the autumn of 2017, came to an end in 2021. The objective of this programme was to improve our business operations and make them more agile and manageable. This has largely been achieved. A core element of this program is the so called Future State Architecture (FSA); a product-focused target operating model which is based on specific and predefined responsibilities. The responsibility for implementation and safeguarding of the use of the  FSA now lies within the organisation while internal support on these type of topics has been organised. People know where to find this support and have been using it throughout 2021, turning PGGM Investments into a more agile and future-proof organisation. 

Program ‘Besturing 2021’

The dynamic environment around PGGM Investments continues to challenge our organisation, our teams and our people. Today, PGGM Investments offers high quality products and services at relatively low costs.  With our programme ‘Besturing 2021’ we moved towards a more dynamic and adaptive way of working in order to improve our organisation. 
The programme ‘Besturing 2021’ started off with a focus on improving PGGM Investments’ financial steering and its governance. In July 2021, the program was completed with the delivery of the governance manual ‘Besturing Manual 2021 PGGM Investments’, which has been embedded within PGGM Investments. This led to a product catalogue with detailed information on product-level, Profit & Loss statements using integral costs, and five-year rather than one-year business plans on total product and business unit-level. Together, these developments have ensured that PGGM Investments acts more in line with its integral responsibilities.  
In 2022, this way of thinking will be further implemented. New insights that came out of the program will allow PGGM Investments to take charge and act according to its integral responsibility. Consequently, we expect PGGM Investments to transform into a fast-paced, adaptive organization.