UK software vendor CHP Consulting
will open its first European mainland office in Frankfurt in early
2010 – a move that closely follows the launch of ALFA v5, the
latest version of its flagship product. But what are the reasons
behind this “German move” during these turbulent times and what
will be the major challenges for CHP there?
According to Steve Taplin, Sales and Marketing
Associate Director at CHP, one major reason behind this new
strategy was the performance and status that Germany has achieved
in today’s European leasing market. Indeed, despite the cutback
during the financial crisis, the country is firmly on top of
Europe’s leasing, has a well-established market and hosts nine of
the 50 largest European lessors.
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Interestingly, however, while the London-based
software company was making its strategic decision, an unexpected
number of requests for information from German lessors motivated
CHP even more to look into this chance.
“Having three market opportunities coming from
Germany in the space of one month was a sort of ratification of our
strategic decision,” Taplin said, adding that the company is
currently implementing ALFA for the German subsidiaries of two
international players.
Before making its final decision, the company
also conducted formal market research employing the German office
of strategic consultancy Invigors to get German lessors’
perspective on how healthy they perceived the local market, as well
as on what their level of interest might be in CHP. In both cases
the results, Taplin said, were “extremely positive”.
One element that emerged from the CHP research
was that the main competitive challenge would come from in-house
solutions (many being used by captives), rather than local or
international vendors.
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By GlobalDataHowever, Taplin highlighted that the captive
wor
ld is also where
the company has seen the greatest opportunities, especially in the
cases when “there have been specific compliance burdens placed on
German leasing organisations, which have struggled with existing
in-house systems”.
Working in a different market, according to
Taplin, will also be an opportunity, rather than a challenge.
Indeed, in Germany CHP will still be primarily
focused on equipment lessors – what it has long been well-known for
in the UK, US and Australian markets. But Taplin added that a
number of recent implementations in the Nordics make the company
far better placed also to support the real estate portfolios.
Overall, he concluded, the Frankfurt opening
will show what two years and a £5 million investment were spent for
– to realise a product that could handle multi-GAAP accounting,
multi-currency/language capabilities, data segregation to separate
one country’s business from another, all of that using the latest
technology.
