EastWest Ageas strengthens financial control and agility by transforming Finance and Procurement with Workday and Strada

An interview with Hendrik Jan van Drie (Henk), CFO; Bren Cruz, SVP Finance; and Mary Jane Ramos, Business Services Head, EastWest Ageas

EastWest Ageas (EWA), a leading insurance provider in the Philippines and part of the Ageas Group, has grown rapidly over the past decade. As the business scaled, so did the complexity of its finance and procurement operations.

This growth created an opportunity to simplify systems, strengthen financial governance, and bring core processes together into a more unified, efficient operating model aligned with EWA’s long-term strategy.

To support this evolution, EWA embarked on a transformation of its Finance and Procurement landscape, selecting Workday Financial Management and Adaptive Planning, with Strada as its implementation partner.

Modernizing a complex ERP landscape to support growth and efficiency

Prior to Workday, EWA operated with a legacy ERP environment that supported some core financial functions, while other critical processes, such as procure-to-pay and budgeting were managed outside the system.

This setup reflected the organization’s evolution over time and highlighted opportunities to:

• bring financial and procurement processes into a single system
• reduce reliance on manual work
• strengthen financial controls and governance
• enable faster, more informed decision-making

At the same time, the organization recognized the need for a solution that better aligned with its size, maturity, and future growth plans.

“We reached a point where we needed a system that truly fit our organization, one that could support our processes end-to-end while remaining intuitive, scalable, and sustainable over time. Equally important was having Strada as a partner, who understood our brief and could match the pace of transformation we were accustomed to.”

Hendrik Jan van Drie (Henk) Chief Financial Officer, EastWest Ageas

Workday stood out for its ability to provide a modern, integrated platform that balances functionality, usability, and flexibility, without the complexity and overhead of traditional ERP systems.

Building an integrated finance and procurement foundation

A key priority for EWA was to bring together core financial and operational processes into a single, connected platform. In just one phase, the organization successfully implemented:

• Workday Financial Management
• Procure-to-Pay (P2P)
• Expense management
• Financial reporting
• Budgeting and planning integration

This expanded scope went beyond the original plan and allowed EWA to establish a strong, integrated foundation for finance and procurement from day one. The transformation also introduced:

• standardized workflows
• improved process visibility
• enhanced auditability and control
• a more intuitive user experience

Delivering transformation at speed with strong governance

EWA delivered the transformation in just eight months, from business case to implementation, a significant achievement for a project of this scale. This was made possible through:

• strong executive sponsorship
• clear governance and decision-making structures
• disciplined scope prioritization
• close collaboration between Finance, Procurement, IT, and Strada

From a finance perspective, the focus was clear: simplify processes, reduce manual steps, and improve control without adding unnecessary complexity.

“With Workday, we’re moving towards fewer manual steps, stronger controls, and faster access to reliable data, enabling us to manage our financial processes more effectively on a day-to-day basis. This also required significant effort in data migration, structured change management, and knowledge transfer, where Strada played a critical role as our transformation partner.”

Bren Cruz SVP Finance, EastWest Ageas

This shift is expected to further reduce the financial close cycle while improving accuracy and transparency.

Enabling usability, adoption and long-term scalability

For EWA’s procurement and operational teams, usability and adoption were baseline criteria for success. Moving from a largely manual and fragmented environment to an integrated platform required not only system change, but also a shift in how users interact with processes daily.

Workday’s intuitive design and step-by-step implementation approach helped the organization:

• simplify complex workflows
• improve user adoption
• reduce dependency on technical teams
• empower business users to manage processes directly

“What stood out was how intuitive the system is and how it allows us to build capability over time. We can start with the basics, stabilize, and then continue to expand, which made the transition much more manageable for our teams.”

Mary Jane Ramos Business Services Head, EastWest Ageas

This phased, practical approach ensured that EWA could build confidence and capability while continuing to deliver business outcomes.

A partnership built on expertise, transparency and trust

A critical factor in the successful transformation was EWA’s partnership with Strada. From the outset, Strada brought:

• deep expertise in deploying Workday across its full suite of products
• a collaborative, hands-on delivery approach
• transparent and consistent engagement
• strong leadership involvement

This helped EWA navigate key decisions, manage complexity, and deliver within a compressed timeline.

The partnership also extended to:

• supporting data migration and archiving decisions
• guiding change management and training
• enabling knowledge transfer to internal teams

Early impact, stronger controls, better visibility and improved efficiency

While still early in the journey, EWA is already seeing meaningful improvements:

• stronger financial controls embedded into workflows
• reduced reliance on manual processes
• improved visibility into financial and procurement data
• more consistent and standardized processes
• better alignment between finance, procurement, and business teams

The organization is now focused on stabilizing operations and continuing to optimize performance, with a clear goal of reducing financial close timelines and improving overall efficiency.

Preparing for future optimization, automation and AI

With Workday now in place, EWA is well positioned to build on this foundation. Near-term priorities include:

• stabilizing and optimizing core processes
• expanding reporting and planning capabilities
• exploring further automation opportunities

Over time, this foundation will enable:

• more advanced analytics and insights
• AI-driven enhancements
• improved forecasting and financial planning

A foundation for long-term transformation and advice for peers

For EWA, this transformation is about more than replacing a system; it’s about building a finance and procurement operating model that supports sustainable growth. By aligning technology with organizational maturity and simplifying core processes, EWA has created a foundation that is both scalable and adaptable.