Retourplaza

Digital services, new partnerships, and rising expectations around accessibility and personalization are reshaping how insurers support their members. For Menzis, one of the Netherlands’ largest health insurers, this evolution directly connects to its long‑standing mission of keeping healthcare accessible and relevant for everyone.

Founded in 1836, Menzis is a non‑profit cooperative that places people at the center of everything it does. Working closely with healthcare providers, municipalities, and partners, the organization continuously explores smarter and more sustainable ways to support the health of its 1.9 million members.

To do that effectively in a rapidly evolving market, they needed a trusted partner to help them manage, personalize, and expand its additional services, digital health solutions, and benefits.

‍

The challenge: Limited flexibility in a fast‑moving market

In the Dutch healthcare market, insurers operate in one of the most regulated environments in Europe. Core insurance packages are largely standardized and tightly controlled by legislation, with expectations around digital services to continue to rise.

This means insurers must continuously look for new ways to keep pace with the changing market, deliver high quality service, and introduce digital health solutions that support people throughout their entire health journey.

“Before the Proposition Backend, we were dependent on app releases and therefore indirectly on iOS and Android," says Siona Gidding, Product Owner Digital Partnerships | Care Access & Care Innovation, Menzis Cooperative. "That dependency also applied to content adjustments within the Extras.”

Menzis needed a more flexible setup that would allow the organization to manage and expand its Extras offering with greater speed and independence. The aim was to create an environment that would allow the team to introduce new services, partnerships, and digital health solutions faster, while still providing members with a seamless and consistent experience through the Menzis app.

The solution: A Mendix backend to orchestrate propositions

To address this challenge, CLEVR built Backend Propositions, a Mendix application that acts as a centralized backend layer for managing Menzis Extras.

Instead of embedding commercial logic directly in the consumer app, the platform gives Menzis a flexible environment where the organization can manage the full lifecycle of its Extras offering in one place. The system supports the configuration of propositions, determines which members are eligible for specific services, and ensures that offers are presented in a relevant context through the Menzis app.

At the same time, the platform provides operational control for managing partner offerings and monitoring how propositions are used. This allows Menzis to ensure availability, maintain oversight of collaborations with service providers, and continuously optimize the Extras portfolio.

“From the start of the project, the goal was to create something Menzis could continue building on," says Sherwin Shahbazi, Project Manager at CLEVR. "By moving the proposition logic into a dedicated backend platform, the team now has a scalable foundation that makes it much easier to introduce new services, work with partners, and expand the Extras ecosystem in the future.”[ET1] [SS2] 

Results: Greater agility and stronger member relevance

Although the solution has only recently gone live, Backend Propositions has already changed how Menzis can manage and expand its Extras offering, enabling teams to:

• expand and manage the Extras offering with greater speed and independence
• introduce new services, partnerships, and digital health propositions more easily
• tailor offerings to different member groups and insurance packages
• maintain better oversight of partner collaborations and service availability
• continuously evolve the Extras ecosystem as member needs and market conditions change

Where the Extras offering was previously tied to app release cycles and development dependencies, the organization now has a dedicated platform that unlocks a new level of operational flexibility.

Teams can manage, expand, and refine the Extras ecosystem directly, enabling Menzis to introduce new services and partnerships more dynamically while continuously adapting the offering to member needs in a fast-changing healthcare landscape.

A flexible digital foundation where it matters most

Delivering the solution required close collaboration across multiple teams between CLEVR, and the Menzis middleware and app team. By working together from the start, the teams were able to define how the backend should function, how it would integrate with the app and middleware layers, and how the experience would appear to members, ensuring both technical and user perspectives were aligned before development began.

“Our goal was to offer the Extras to our members starting January 1, 2026," adds Siona. "We began the preparation phase in summer and started building in September. CLEVR, as part of the broader backend team, played a key role in successfully delivering the solution, remaining accessible, engaged, and solution‑oriented whenever questions arose.”

Backend Propositions ultimately gave Menzis exactly what the organization was aiming for: a secure and flexible environment in which teams can manage and expand the Extras ecosystem with far greater control and independence, and deliver personalized and meaningful services while respecting the strict governance protocols of the sector.

Together, Menzis and CLEVR have set the foundation for a flexible and effective digital operating model that strengthens how the insurer connects digital services, member experience, and commercial strategy. Today and in the future.

Build tomorrow, together with CLEVR.

As the central business intelligence hub for Dutch healthcare, Vektis plays a vital role in ensuring that quality care remains accessible, affordable, and data-driven. From managing a state-of-the-art national data warehouse to delivering insights that guide healthcare policy, Vektis' platforms form the foundation on which insurers, providers, and policymakers base their work, ensuring efficiency, transparency, and trust across the healthcare value chain.

However, managing and interpreting the vast and ever-changing landscape of healthcare regulation is no simple task. Dutch health insurers process millions of claims annually, each subject to detailed national regulations, and those regulations rarely stand still.

This is where CLEVR comes in.

With the goal to optimize how these regulatory controls are created, validated, and shared industry-wide, Vektis partnered with CLEVR to support them in optimizing a future-ready solution that streamlines regulatory compliance, fosters collaboration among all health insurers, and ensures full transparency.

The challenge: Complexity, compliance, and coordination

Each year, new legislation and policy updates from the NZa (Dutch Healthcare Authority) require rapid translation into operational standards that must be quickly adopted and implemented. This constant motion creates immense pressure for insurers to interpret, translate, and apply these rules consistently, and even more so in a traditionally fragmented landscape.

The BFT platform was specifically developed to address this challenge by providing health insurers across the Netherlands with a unified regulatory language and real‑time access to updated terminology and policy information. And Vektis needed to ensure that it could continue to evolve smoothly as both technology and regulation advanced.

That required expert guidance, structured optimization, and a future-proof Mendix upgrade and CLEVR, as a selected implementation partner was tasked to rebrand the BFT platform, manage a seamless migration, and ensure its smooth integration within the Vektis infrastructure.

The solution: Supporting, and future-proofing the BFT Platform with CLEVR Support

Since the BFT application (originally created by Zilveren Kruis) is built on Mendix low code, CLEVR Support began immediately to map out areas for improvement, define clear goals, and outline the steps to achieve them. Together with Vektis, they modernized infrastructure, streamlined operations, and enhanced overall performance, bringing proactive monitoring and best practices into every phase of the application lifecycle.
‍

"When Vektis chose CLEVR Support as the maintenance and operations partner for the BFT application, we were genuinely thrilled,” says Michel Langras, Support Manager at CLEVR Support NL. “The real challenge was ensuring robust, continuous, and dependable functionality, without disruptions, performance issues, or any compromise to compliance.”
‍

CLEVR Support upgraded the platform to the latest Mendix 10 version, ensuring the BFT application has access to Mendix’s newest capabilities, performance enhancements, and long-term platform support. This allowed Vektis to future‑proof the environment, providing a stronger foundation for ongoing improvements, security, and functionality expansion, as the tool evolves to facilitate increased data volumes and workflow complexity.

The result? A single source of truth for all healthcare control definitions in the Netherlands, supported by a structured, transparent workflow that ensures each phase, from rule creation to publication, is fully traceable, standardized, and compliant.
‍

“The aim was to guarantee continuity and make BFT future-proof and adapt to market needs,” says Armin de Klerk, Business Analyst at Vektis. “And CLEVR had already proven its capability in the original implementation, making them the perfect partner to collaborate with and take the platform to the next level.”
‍

‍

Impact: Maximizing performance and supporting long-term growth

Today, more than 4,000 active LCBs are maintained within the BFT system, redefining how the entire sector collaborates and manages compliance, and creating business opportunities that extend far beyond operational efficiency.

CLEVR Support not only enhanced performance. Together with Vektis they gave the BFT platform a solid foundation for a more connected, intuitive environment that empowers users to collaborate and innovate with confidence.
‍

“Our role as CLEVR Support is to make sure the systems our customers depend on continue to perform at their best,” continues Michel. “For Vektis, that means keeping the BFT application stable, secure, and up to date, so it can continue to serve the insurers for years to come.”
‍

Key Benefits Delivered:

• Stability and Reliability: Continuous monitoring and optimization ensured smooth performance even as data volumes and user activity grew.
• Stronger Compliance Alignment: Adherence to NZa regulations is now facilitated through on-demand update requests, ensuring the platform stays secure, compliant, and optimized without disrupting operations.
• Optimized Architecture: The Mendix 10 upgrade modernized infrastructure, strengthened security, and improved overall speed and user experience.

Partnering for a fairer, smarter healthcare insurance landscape

By combining CLEVR’s low-code expertise and Vektis’ commitment to sector-wide collaboration, the BFT platform has become a cornerstone of digital governance in the Dutch healthcare system. It demonstrates how technology, when paired with collaboration and clear governance, can set new standards for innovation, resilience, and continuous improvement across the Dutch healthcare system.

Vektis and CLEVR continue to enhance the platform’s functionality, ensuring it evolves in step with regulatory change and industry innovation. And CLEVR remains a trusted implementation partner.
‍

“The collaboration with CLEVR was excellent from the start,” says Armin. “They coordinated between all stakeholders, bridging technical and organizational perspectives seamlessly, and ensuring that the transition was both robust and efficient. We know we can always rely on them for support whenever new needs or challenges arise.”
‍

Together, Vektis and CLEVR Support have designed a reliable foundation that keeps the BFT platform secure, and continuously optimized. Through expert guidance, proactive maintenance, and innovation-driven support, CLEVR ensures that Vektis can confidently serve the growing healthcare community with a solution that remains resilient, high-performing, and ready for the future.

Implementing an application is only half of the journey. In today’s fast-moving digital landscape, you need your app to perform flawlessly, deliver consistently smooth user experiences, and scale seamlessly as business demands and user expectations increase. And this is especially true for Mendix applications, which often become integral to core operations.

As low code applications mature, they inevitably expand in scope and complexity and, over time, they might slow down, or encounter recurring bottlenecks, that impact scalability, maintainability, and user satisfaction across core business functions. This is where continuous optimization becomes vital to sustaining performance and ensuring they remain reliable drivers of digital operations. 

A client of ours faced exactly these challenges when during critical business periods, system slowdowns and instability started impacting promotions, imports, and daily operations. Searches returned delays, large data imports overloaded servers, and certain queues and interfaces were draining system resources.

Fortunately, CLEVR was able to step in with expertise and structured diagnostics to restore stability and build confidence. As a trusted partner, our team ensured operations continued smoothly, downtime costs were minimized, and the user experience remained protected during periods of peak demand.

CLEVR’s diagnostic approach to Mendix performance

In industries where reliability and speed are directly tied to revenue and customer satisfaction, a performance-first mindset is essential from day one. Recognizing this, our support team started immediately, initiating a Performance Diagnostics Scan to uncover underlying structural bottlenecks that could potentially cause the application to experience instability across critical operations.

Unlike routine monitoring or basic incident response, the Performance Diagnostics Scan provides a targeted, in-depth evaluation and is specifically designed to rapidly identify the top long-running actions, predict capacity needs, and provide clear recommendations for future optimization. This makes it particularly valuable during periods of high demand, as demonstrated in this specific retailer’s case.
‍

“Designed with CLEVR’s deep expertise in low code support, the Performance Diagnostics Scan makes it fast and efficient to identify bottlenecks and enhance application performance,” says Richard Pluim, Team Lead Support at CLEVR. “This allows us to directly intervene at the most critical pain points that impact stability and growth.”
‍

By leveraging log analysis, Mendix Cloud alert monitoring, performance tooling, and user behavior review, including manual tests in both development and acceptance environments, we were able to successfully replicate the issues and pinpoint their root causes.

Key performance bottlenecks identified

Our diagnostics revealed several areas where the application was being stressed, particularly in search, data handling, and queue management. Rapid application growth combined with inadequate input handling and insufficient safeguards for heavy data processing made the system vulnerable to instability during periods of growth and peak demand.

More specifically, the team identified the following problems:

• Free Search functionality: attempted to fetch millions of articles due to unfiltered input (e.g., empty values or duplicate separators), causing unnecessary load and slowed down results.
• Large data imports: as increasing demand pushed more and more imports through the system, the lack of batching or limits created database overload and disk spikes above 75%, which resulted in timeouts.
• Low-performing queues: under heavy load, certain queues were draining system performance, primarily due to resource constraints and lack of optimization.
• Interfaces importing article data: certain services, like Article data imports, struggled with exceptionally large volumes, as they lacked mechanisms to process and validate input efficiently.

‍

Targeted optimization solutions

Implementing the solutions required both precision and care. Even though troubleshooting was not without its challenges, some issues were intermittent and difficult to reproduce, with years of experience handling Mendix applications and an in-depth understanding of the client’s environment, our support team acted quickly and effectively to restore stability.

Restoring performance without disrupting the client’s live production environment was a top priority and as such, quick wins like urgent restarts were applied immediately to resolve critical issues, while fixes that required careful testing and scheduling around peak business periods were implemented later to ensure a holistic and lasting solution.

Overall, the solutions our team implemented were the following:

• Optimized search queries by filtering out empty values before execution.
• Introduced thresholds and batching for large imports, supported by monitoring dashboards to track duration.
• Applied server restarts and queue tuning to stabilize urgent issues.
• Suggested future-proofing strategies to handle high data loads more efficiently.

Measurable results and business impact

The implementation process was carried out in close collaboration with the client’s internal team. Open communication, regular check-ins, and alignment on priorities ensured the solutions were delivered smoothly, and with minimal disruption to ongoing operations.

This collaborative approach allowed both teams to work towards a shared goal of restoring stability and enhancing user confidence by delivering on key measurable results:

• Search performance became fast and stable, even for long EAN lists.
• System stability improved with far fewer timeouts and Mendix Cloud alerts.
• End users experienced smoother workflows, especially during promotions and imports.
  ‍

“Performance improved dramatically. From being one of the slowest applications in the chain, it became one of the fastest, causing performance gaps in other applications to become visible, continues Richard. “This is how strategic performance optimization can drive efficiency across the entire application landscape.”

Future stability with CLEVR Mendix support

After implementation, our team made sure to embed a proactive monitoring approach so that any potential issues could be tracked and addressed before they impact operations. Thanks to this, performance has remained stable with no recurrence of the issues previously identified, even during high-load periods.

This case highlights the importance of having a tailored Mendix support partner that can deliver immediate, measurable improvements without lengthy projects or downtime. By combining diagnostics, communication, and fast fixes, CLEVR enabled this leading retailer to stabilize their business-critical applications and build long-term resilience.

With over 190 satisfied customers and a 96% first-time-right score, CLEVR’s support services provide industry-specific expertise and advanced technology that empower companies across sectors to scale with confidence and remain future-ready.

Whatever your challenge, CLEVR’s Expert Support Services team is here to help you maintain operational excellence.

Contact us for a free Performance Diagnostics Scan.

‍