Published on 20 October 2009

In this article I will try to identify a few of these and do a little crystal ball gazing to see how they might evolve and where they might take us in the future. In each case I believe that the technologies and tools can benefit any leasing company to some degree. It’s up to each company where they want to put themselves on the effort-reward curve, from ‘early adopter’ to ‘mature technology.'

Leveraging Business Information
Sadly, it still remains true that the single most utilised accounting and administration system in all leasing companies is Excel. So, even the first base for leveraging business information – getting all your data in one place – can be a major challenge for many organisations. However, with risk management and wanting ‘no surprises’ high on everyone’s agenda, never has this first step been more important. Moving beyond that, today’s mainstream Business Information (BI) technology is allowing organisations that have taken steps to corral their data to start understanding what they have. Establishing common data meaning and format and providing efficient, repeatable processes to obtain, refresh, aggregate and access this data allows management to ask structured questions. BI reporting tools such as Business Objects or Cognos, correctly deployed, mean that deeper and more complete analysis of corporate data can be undertaken.

The next step for many companies is then to deploy an OLAP (On-line Analytical Processing) product, which means that you can start to dig into the unstructured questions – for example: what are the leading indicators of early payment default for your customers? When an interesting data result appears, instant drill-down and multi-variant analyses can help you really understand what is going on in your organisation.

I believe that the next generation of BI solutions will see more emphasis on real-time data, and on more alert-driven and dashboard facilities. The ‘Zero Latency Enterprise’ – where real-time transaction data is instantly available for reporting and analysis – may not be necessary in all areas, but the more current your data, the more timely your decision making. Couple that with dashboards which display the key data you require, and even the data you ought to be asking for, published to the corporate internet, ‘pushed’ out to mobile devices and securely accessible anywhere in the world, and there will no longer be any reason to be left behind when the next wave crashes.

Process Optimisation
The idea of making processes as efficient as possible is a given – of course you want your processes to efficient. However, efficiency may no longer be the simple metric it was, measured in minutes of work required to achieve a task. Instead, other measures such as customer satisfaction and retention, ethical and ecological measures, and impacts on both short and long term risk and profitability may all need to be taken into account. At the same time, the task may be handled by multiple groups, organised by function, geography, channel or asset specialisation, and located anywhere around the globe in a constant whirl of processing activity.

In this ever more complex world, there is still a place for good paper-based process analysis and improvement work, aided by methodologies such as Six Sigma and Lean. But without technology, applying and enforcing such improvements becomes impossible for any but the simplest organisation. The first level of technology here is of workflow, whereby tasks may be allocated to individuals and systematically tracked through the organisation, from front thru middle and back offices, seamlessly and efficiently. Beyond that, the application of complex task routing, including parametrised flows, load-balancing, push and pull work queues, parallel routing and asynchronous tasks allow workflow technology to be applied more effectively across the organisation. In addition, the system must hold a full audit trail of every flow and its task and wait timings, to allow the corporate BI tool or dashboard to monitor and report on how the organisation is functioning.

In the next stage of evolution, integrated Business Rules Engines mean that even the most flexible and high-touch processes can be managed automatically, even where decisions need to be made which leverage the corporate expertise gathered over time. And finally, we are now starting to see the use of ‘champion / challenger’ approaches to further improve workflows and adopt new ones. Being able to consider ‘what if scenarios’ and contrast them in a pilot environment with the existing best of breed process allows for constant refining and optimisation of all processes in the leasing enterprise.

Configurability
Leasing systems have come a long way from the single product, single currency, single process systems of the past, where any change needed to be hard-coded by the programmers to the bespoke needs of an individual lessor. A modern system allows for an enterprise to process multiple products, in multiple countries, currencies, languages, geographies and with multiple accounting methods. Tasks can be routed around the globe and around the organisation by workflow to the most appropriate user. The whole system can be set up to meet the needs of lessor A as well as lessors B, C and Z, all via parameterised, configurable systems which are driven by workflows and business rules, not by the code programmed for the most recent prior customer. Core and outsourced tasks can be mixed and matched and evolved over time as business function and data can be passed back and forth using Web Services and modern API tools. But even this can be improved on, and will be. Automatic discovery and configuration of interfaces will become the norm, much as Bluetooth wireless connections happen today. And configuration will become less and less a function of a technologist and more of a business user or analyst, using natural language interfaces and ‘drag and drop’ tools. If you want to see what the future might look like take a look at Yahoo Pipes (pipes.yahoo.com) for a world where end users develop configurable flows to gather and manipulate data from anywhere in the world to meet their own specific business or personal requirement.

Social Networking
My final pick is not a technology for leasing systems as such, but one that I nonetheless urge the leasing industry to embrace. While the amount of business time wasted on some personal social networks (e.g. Facebook) is immense, there are genuine business networking sites, (of which LinkedIn is the most prominent), where millions of business professionals (who aren’t – contrary to popular rumour – all looking for a job) network together and share information, discuss views, and are starting to transact business. If you’re not yet onboard, don’t miss the boat – join up now, and make sure to connect with me (www.linkedin.com/in/justincooper99 ) once you have!

The above was published on 20 October 2009 on the World Leasing News website and was written by CHP Director, Justin Cooper.