Speakers at the Leasing Life asset finance conference in Milan have urged the industry to open up to new ways of working as markets gradually recover.
Patrick Gouin, head of High Tech International at SG Equipment Finance, underlined the complexity arising from the breadth of operations undertaken by asset finance companies, and challenged business leaders to focus in on new KPIs.
He said customer and employee satisfaction were in danger of being eclipsed once more by the desire to centralise operations, grow overall portfolios and write business at competitive rates.
“The more we shoot, the less we hit,” he said, adding that he would rather his business have fewer, happier customers, than many who were more or less satisfied.
Joel Posters, head of corporate social responsibility at De Lage Landen, argued that commercial success for the sector relied on more than simply book-building and cost cutting.
He made the point that a group-wide CSR policy could aid, rather than hinder, profitability, using the example that the decision not to finance equipment for a mining group, which was subsequently shut down after pressure from non-governmental organisations, had seen DLL avoid reputational and credit risk.
