So said Rod Barthet, who certainly has enough
experience to offer advice to lessors. After spending 12 years
working for Schroder Leasing, Barthet became sales director at
Siemens Financial Services in the UK, a position he held for eight
years until he left to join the UK’s largest ICT dealer, Annodata,
in 2008.
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Now that he has worked on the other side of
the fence, as a vendor, Barthet believes lessors need to change
their models if they want to stay ahead of the competition and
capitalise on the opportunities that exist as the market and
products develop.
“Lessors should be concerned if they are not
genuinely engaging with key vendors and brokers. Lessors need to
focus on the quality of their services and how these translate into
products which add value to the vendor and broker,” Barthet
said.
“Opportunity to take substantial market share
exists where lessors work to understand the sales process that
occurs and, importantly, what and how financial products and
services are being sold, and then tailor their products
accordingly,” he added.
Be selective
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By GlobalDataThe key, according to Barthet, is
for lessors to become more selective about which vendors they do
business with.
“Most lessors already consider they are being
selective, but the reality is unless the lessor develops a
relationship with its introducer, its products will always be open
to abuse,” he said.
Barthet believes that there is an increasing
conflict between vendor and lessor, as lessors tend to see the
asset and the service as entirely separate items, while the
vendor's product is sold primarily as a service
solution.
This leads to an “immediate conflict between
what is being sold and the products that the leasing companies are
providing. This dilemma can be successfully bridged, but only where
there is a genuine understanding between the vendor and lessor and
if products are tailored accordingly”.
“Much of the pain felt by the lessor community
was driven by an insufficient focus on why brokers were writing a
lot of business with vendors that would typically be rejected for a
direct funding line,” Barthet added.
Automation
In terms of standing out of the
crowd, lessors should be more intelligent about using automated
services, Barthet said.
Most mainstream lessors pursue a strategy of
increased automation which results in commoditised products, he
said. Lessors should not count on getting a competitive advantage
through three-hour decision processes because “everyone does
it”.
“Work hard to really understand your vendor
and customer.,“ Barthet added. “If you can do that, there is a real
opportunity for increasing market share while developing
successful, long term relationships.”
Jason T Hesse
