The organizations
we work with.

About SGS Search

SGS Search is the Dutch subsidiary of the world's leading testing, inspection and certification company, Société Générale de Surveillance, with around 98,000 employees across more than 2,650 offices and laboratories globally.

Market size study on harmful ceramic isolation materials

SGS Search specialises in detecting and removing asbestos at industrial and office sites. As government subsidies incentivised removal, questions arose about substitute ceramic isolation materials also proven to be harmful. A field study assessed the scale of the problem and the feasibility of targeting this new market segment.

About SGS Search

SGS Search is the Dutch subsidiary of the world's leading testing, inspection and certification company, Société Générale de Surveillance, with around 98,000 employees across more than 2,650 offices and laboratories globally.

Data automation and management dashboard

Following the market study, SGS Search requested a management dashboard to monitor divisional performance trends and identify opportunities using in-house data. The project focused on selecting and structuring data sources for executive interpretation.

About SGS Search

SGS Search is the Dutch subsidiary of the world's leading testing, inspection and certification company, Société Générale de Surveillance, with around 98,000 employees across more than 2,650 offices and laboratories globally.

Expanding data sourcing by web scraping

Running in parallel with Project 2, external data points were identified and sourced using Python-based web scraping and integrated into the management dashboard.

About Delta Lloyd

Delta Lloyd Group was a Dutch insurer with operations in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, holding a market share of around 8% before its acquisition by NN Group in 2017.

Portfolio analysis and optimisation

In close collaboration with Delta Lloyd's actuarial team, the business insurance portfolio was analysed across six insurance types and a large number of intermediary vendors. Performance KPIs were applied at both levels, by insurance type and by vendor, identifying top performers and opportunities for portfolio optimisation.

About Delta Lloyd

Delta Lloyd Group was a Dutch insurer with operations in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, holding a market share of around 8% before its acquisition by NN Group in 2017.

KPI identification and management dashboard

A multi-level dashboard was designed for six specialist teams and one consolidated executive view. Type-specific and cross-cutting KPIs were identified, connected live to Delta Lloyd's data lake, and updated daily, covering vendor performance, profitability trends and strategic steering signals.

About A.Hak

Since 1963, A.Hak has delivered solutions for underground infrastructure, from design and construction to operational maintenance, across electricity, heat, gas, water and pipeline networks.

Human capital, reducing absenteeism and redesigning incentive structures

A.Hak's competitive position depends entirely on its people: experienced field crews and scarce engineers are difficult to replace, making rising absenteeism among operational staff a direct threat to project timelines.

Led by employee services firm Job Solution, in partnership with HAN University and Van Zon, the engagement covered employee satisfaction research, incentive structure analysis, stakeholder network mapping, and design of a management control system to track the performance of implemented recommendations.

About SAP Nederland

SAP's Dutch office operates primarily as a sales hub within SAP's transnational strategy, serving organisations of all sizes with enterprise software that centralises data management across business functions.

Sales dashboard, stakeholder mapping

In 2017, SAP sought an automated tool to map the stakeholder networks of prospects using publicly available data, replacing a manual process that was time-consuming and costly per individual company map. The project defined the key data points to identify and weight the influence of individuals connected to a prospect, designed the data structure, and conceptualised a dynamic dashboard. Sources included LinkedIn, CRM data, third-party datasets and account manager input. The tool was subsequently developed and implemented by an in-house developer at SAP.

About AfterPay

AfterPay specialised in post-purchase payment services in the Benelux. Part of the Arvato Bertelsmann Group since 2014, it competed primarily with Klarna and Dutch rival Billink. In late 2022, AfterPay was rebranded to Riverty.

International expansion roll-out

Facing increasing competition from Klarna, AfterPay accelerated its European expansion. Joining the Dutch team as an account manager, existing sales processes were analysed, optimised and standardised, then translated to German and implemented with the local team, before being refined into a universal standard for further European roll-out.

About AfterPay

AfterPay specialised in post-purchase payment services in the Benelux. Part of the Arvato Bertelsmann Group since 2014, it competed primarily with Klarna and Dutch rival Billink. In late 2022, AfterPay was rebranded to Riverty.

Related diversification study

AfterPay was exploring payment opportunities beyond e-commerce, particularly in the events and festivals sector. A five-month study covered market analysis, competitive landscape, and an assessment of AfterPay's resources and capabilities, concluding with a market entry framework.

About Keiron Printing Technologies

Keiron is a high-tech startup founded in Eindhoven by venture builder HighTechXL, holding rare expertise in advanced printing technologies with applications across biotech, IT and the semiconductor industry.

Strategic growth plan

Over four months, Keiron's proprietary technologies were analysed and valued across a shortlist of target industries. Three strategic options were recommended, each supported by detailed growth plans covering funding needs, estimated growth rates and success probabilities. The resulting report was presented at a fundraising event, raising more than three times the originally targeted amount.

About Keiron Printing Technologies

Keiron is a high-tech startup founded in Eindhoven by venture builder HighTechXL, holding rare expertise in advanced printing technologies with applications across biotech, IT and the semiconductor industry.

Competitive landscape and alternative growth options

Following the fundraising success, Keiron reinvited Van Zon to assess adjacent technologies and industries, to further expand its market positioning and increase the startup's valuation.

About Photosynthetic

Photosynthetic is an Amsterdam-based startup building the first production-speed 3D printer capable of printing at sub-micron resolution, removing barriers to mass production of complex microstructures.

Strategic growth, partnerships and fundraising advisory

Despite a proven MVP, a strong team and over €1.75 million in grant funding, Photosynthetic was struggling to secure seed investment. Van Zon was brought in to diagnose root causes, provide strategic and financial guidance aligned to investor expectations, and co-develop a renewed funding strategy and go-to-market approach.

A comprehensive company scan covered internal operations, funding history, strategic initiatives, and investor outreach to date. Interviews with incubators, angel investors and early-stage VCs generated market intelligence and tested alignment. A sharpened pitch and clear documentation followed. Van Zon subsequently acted as an ongoing strategic advisor, helping Photosynthetic stay investor-ready and communicate its value effectively as it scaled.

About Gemeente Gooise Meren

Gooise Meren is a municipality of around 58,000 inhabitants in the province of North Holland, formed in 2016 through the merger of Bussum, Muiden and Naarden.

Qualitative research on social minimum policy

In-depth interviews were conducted with residents living on or below the social minimum to understand how they experience their financial situations, whether support structures are sufficient, and what needs to change. The findings were translated into a human-centric report giving policymakers a clear picture of lived realities, with strong emphasis on sensitivity, confidentiality and trust.

About Vanderlande

Vanderlande is a material handling and logistics automation company headquartered in Veghel, Netherlands, and a subsidiary of Toyota Industries. Its systems operate in more than 600 airports worldwide, including the majority of the world's largest.

Procurement transformation, savings tracking and reporting

Although procurement savings initiatives had long been underway, no system existed to measure or substantiate their impact. Following the acquisition by Toyota, a formal programme was initiated with significant savings ambitions across the procurement function.

A structured savings tracking methodology was designed, capable of processing data across several million individual parts, including a classification and mapping framework linking savings to historical cost baselines, supplier agreements and transactional records. A daily reporting system was implemented, segmented by geography, business unit, procurement team, commodity group and initiative, providing improved governance, financial transparency and strategic steering across all three business units.

About Vos Logistics

Vos Logistics is a specialist in transport and customer-specific logistics, operating across Europe through a network of 35 branches with 2,500 employees, 1,100 vehicles and 300,000 m² of storage capacity.

Project management, business development and operational transformation

A comprehensive project was carried out to operationalise a new set of service levels for one of Vos Logistics' major clients, requiring end-to-end alignment between contractual commitments and daily execution across multiple departments and stakeholders.

New working structures and processes were designed, including a detailed Standard Operating Procedure, refined internal policies and formalised contractual agreements. Reporting capabilities were enhanced through improved data flows and system integration, enabling automation of recurring tasks. Communication structures were redesigned, internally and externally, establishing clear ownership and responsive issue resolution. The outcome is a future-proof service framework that reinforces Vos Logistics' ability to meet client expectations with precision and reliability.

About Johnson Controls

Johnson Controls is a global leader in smart building technologies with nearly 140 years of experience, more than 100,000 employees and operations across 150 countries.

Strategic transformation, ERP consolidation and data harmonisation

Johnson Controls embarked on a major global transformation programme to consolidate more than 120 legacy ERP systems into two centralised environments, SAP and Oracle, establishing a standardised operational backbone across its European operations.

The engagement focused on analysing fragmented operational and warehouse processes, clarifying data ownership, and translating local inconsistencies into aligned structures. Close collaboration with local and regional teams worldwide enabled the identification of critical data fields, resolution of discrepancies in master and transactional data, and ensured compatibility with global reporting and compliance requirements. Concrete recommendations for process alignment, governance and reporting standards were delivered, contributing to the organisation's goals of process harmonisation, enhanced data governance and improved cross-functional efficiency.

About Perfetti Van Melle

Perfetti Van Melle is an Italian-Dutch multinational in confectionery and gum, the sixth-largest confectionery manufacturer in the world, employing 17,000 people through 30 subsidiaries and distributing in over 159 countries.

Enterprise transformation, ETO strategic advisory

VZA was engaged by the Enterprise Transformation Office as a strategic business analyst to support high-stakes initiatives at the CIO and board level. Operating as a trusted advisor within the transformation leadership team, VZA shaped the cadence and quality of executive decision-making.

Key contributions included developing board-ready presentations and reporting, distilling complex programme data into clear, compelling narratives, and introducing structure and efficiency into daily standups, executive briefings and cross-functional meetings. The improved reporting structure and collaboration practices became embedded within the ETO as standards for programme management excellence.

About GloPros

GloPros is a scaleup combining recruitment and AI, specialising in connecting organisations with highly qualified international talent. The company supports clients across Europe in strengthening operations, improving compliance and scaling teams efficiently through technology.

Workstream 1, Interim Financial Management

During a critical period of rapid growth, VZA stepped in as Interim Financial Manager to stabilise and professionalise GloPros' financial operations, supporting day-to-day processes, improving internal controls, and implementing structured workflows that enhanced accuracy, transparency and reporting reliability.

Workstream 2, Process automation and dashboarding

Automation was established through connections between billing, procurement and administrative software (Exact), enabling automated financial reporting and dashboarding via Google Looker Studio, eliminating significant manual overhead.

Workstream 3, AI recruitment platform development

VZA provided project management and platform integration support, establishing connections between financial management systems and the GloPros platform, including contributions to applicant and client user experience.

About RK Documenten

RK Documenten (rkdocumenten.nl) is a volunteer-run platform. It makes the Roman Catholic Church's body of texts freely accessible in Dutch translation, from encyclicals and council documents to catechisms and papal addresses. The site runs on WordPress and Elasticsearch, and donations pay for all of it.

The engagement

The platform depends entirely on donations, so the giving flow matters. We mapped it from start to finish and reworked it. Where the donation appeal shows up next to a document, how it reads, how many steps it takes to actually give. The aim was simple: turn more readers into recurring donors, and do it without cluttering a site whose whole appeal is the text itself.

About the Aquino translation bot

RK Documenten (rkdocumenten.nl) is a volunteer-run platform that makes the Roman Catholic Church's body of texts freely accessible in Dutch translation.

General-purpose translation tools struggle with theological Latin, where precise terminology and meaning matter. We built a specialised translation bot tuned for the works of Thomas Aquinas, grounded in the right sources and vocabulary, so that Latin is rendered into accurate, faithful Dutch that the platform can rely on.

About RK Documenten

RK Documenten (rkdocumenten.nl) is a volunteer-run platform. It makes the Roman Catholic Church's body of texts freely accessible in Dutch translation, from encyclicals and council documents to catechisms and papal addresses. The site runs on WordPress and Elasticsearch, and donations pay for all of it.

The engagement

A recurring problem on the site is that the same original term is not always translated the same way. It depends on who produced the translation. We built a process to compare versions between certain forms of Latin and to make consistent Latin-to-Dutch choices, working toward the standardised set of Catholic terminology the platform wants to hold to.

About RK Documenten

RK Documenten (rkdocumenten.nl) is a volunteer-run platform. It makes the Roman Catholic Church's body of texts freely accessible in Dutch translation, from encyclicals and council documents to catechisms and papal addresses. The site runs on WordPress and Elasticsearch, and donations pay for all of it.

The engagement

Several functionalities were developed to make the archive easier to use and maintain: a mechanism for flagging bugs and errors in texts, a feature that proposes FAQ questions, and an AI assistant that lets visitors chat and be guided to the correct documentation on the RK Documenten website.

About Kapittel Heilige Willibrord

Kapittel Heilige Willibrord is a Catholic chapter dedicated to Saint Willibrord, the patron who first brought the faith to the Low Countries.

The engagement

Van Zon Advisory built the chapter's website and set up its social-media presence. We also sponsor the chapter, and help it reach and grow its community online.

About Maria Parochie

Maria Parochie is a Roman Catholic parish in 's-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch).

The engagement

A newly arrived pastor inherited a parish where day-to-day authority and decision-making had shifted largely to volunteers and parish members, and where practice had drifted from established norms. Van Zon Advisory supports him with change management on three connected fronts. Volunteer involvement and decision rights are being restructured. The ministry's organisational structure is being realigned around the pastor. And the cultural and community change is being guided rather than forced. Part of that community change is organizing new events and youth initiatives end to end, from concept and planning to running them, to bring younger members back into parish life. The aim is to reverse decline and re-engage members around renewed, clear leadership.