Société Générale Equipment Finance
(SGEF) France was a forerunner in 2004 with its decision-making
tool Flashlease.com.
Installed at its vendor partners’ premises,
Flashlease allowed users to get a prompt answer, in just a few
clicks, about the feasibility of financing an operation. So, the
salesperson could present the client with a tailor-made financing
plan at the time of the sale of the product, building, without
constraints, a financial package adapted to the client and to the
equipment sold.
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This is different to a conventional banking
solution, and in spite of being more expensive, leasing often
satisfies the customer more than a bank solution.
Eight years on, we have continued to develop
our product. Now, SGEF’s partners can manage their entire
inventory, do financial simulations and sales propositions for
clients, and calculate the value of remarketing their
equipment.
SGEF France’s strategy of financing sales
through international (or local) vendor partners has been
reaffirmed by Société Générale Group, at a time when certain
leasing players in France are repositioning their strategy towards
retail banks or local renting experts.
Today SGEF France works with approximately 400
partners supplying office equipment, IT, transport and maintenance
and so on. All these players, often leaders in their own sectors,
look to their financial partner for tools to assist sales. They
want these to be simple, practical and able to be used efficiently
by sales teams. Web tool solutions for financing have been around
for about 10 years and they are becoming an integral part of
routine sales procedures.
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By GlobalDataFurthermore, the advent of new ways of
communicating via the internet, and the use of different devices
(such as smartphones and web administration tools for
manufacturer/distributor sales) will help us to go a step further.
Receiving approval for an operation on a smartphone, and printing
the financial contract at the partner’s office, will shortly be
possible to do from a distance. The connection between the
partner’s information system (manufacturer/distributor) and that of
its financial partner is fast approaching.
SGEF France is already working with certain key
avant-garde vendors. Soon they will be able to go from taking
orders to setting up financial operations without breaking the
chain, with very little human intervention.
Beyond the technical achievements, the
connection between our partners’ front office tool and SGEF
France’s back office tool guarantees a strong sales relationship
between us and our vendor partners.
That means opening the way to two complementary
methods of distribution for the same partner – one that’s fluid and
rapid for simple operations and one requiring expertise and
know-how for more complex operations. For the first type, the tool
becomes a real business channel for making deals when
efficiency counts, allowing the sale of more and better products
(which are often more expensive but better equipped with extra
services such as insurance, etc). For the second type, the sales
people keep control and bring their expertise and know-how into
play.
All these qualities are therefore brought
together to satisfy the two players in the sales relationship. When
will we see customers subscribing to a leasing operation directly
from their personal computer? We are surely not far away.
Antoine D’Hardemare is head of
sales and marketing at SGEF France
