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Everyone
is talking about the internet and e-commerce.
Its use by both individuals and businesses is growing
exponentially. It
is fast becoming a glaring omission to hand out a business
card without an e-mail address on it.
If a business does not yet have a website, it is
“working on one.”
One has to wonder: Where is the leasing industry
in this electronic juggernaut?
The answer is: behind.
What do we mean by “the
internet”?
These
days, when one talks about “the internet,” one is usually
referring to the world wide web (the web), but that was
not always the case.
The internet actually started as an ASCII e-mail
network in the ‘60s known as ARPAnet and was used by the
military and industry to communicate on defense project
developments. Its
distributed network nature, a key element in its usefulness
today, was originally designed to allow communication
to continue even if one or more nodes on the network got
nuked.
Similarly,
the language of the web, HTML (hypertext markup language),
has been around for some time as well as a subset of SGML
(standard general markup language), a formatting and layout
language used by large corporations to manage large document
sets, such as the parts catalogues and schematic manuals
of a large manufacturer.
It does not matter to HTML whether something with
its “tags” is a word, a picture, a file, or anything else.
HTML just says where it goes and how it gets displayed;
thus HTML allows pictures and words to be combined with
programming efficiency.
What
suddenly changed everything was the genius of the Mosaic
browser, which wedded the clever utility of HTML to the
expansive distributed nature of ARPAnet—and the internet
as we know it was suddenly “discovered” by everyone.
(The “internet” is something like the journeyman
actor working in Hollywood for decades who suddenly becomes
an “overnight sensation.”)
Thus,
the internet properly includes a reference to both
(1) e-mail and (2) the world wide web.
(The discussion groups of usenet and news groups
should also not be forgotten, but their text functionality
is being overwhelmed with the fancy graphics of the web.)
E-commerce takes everything a step further
by using the web as a transaction medium to actually conduct
business over the internet.
Where is the leasing industry
in its utilization of the internet?
To
evaluate the leasing industry’s utilization of the internet,
we need to break it into its three major usage segments:
(1) e-mail (2) websites—company brochure type and
(3) websites—e-commerce enabled (i.e., transaction capable).
E-mail
For
some time, The International Leasing Resource has
been developing an electronic database of the leasing
industry, including e-mail and web addresses.
Although a lot has happened in the past few years,
our industry remains woefully behind the times.
We are not “early adopters.”
(The following statistics are “impressionistic”
and not the result of a scientific poll, Gallup style.)
While
a majority of leasing industry participants now have e-mail,
as recently as 2 years ago, probably less than 20% did.
Yet, there are still a large number of you who
don’t. And the vast majority of you who do have e-mail do not put
it on your business card!
Only about 20% or so of leasing business cards
show an e-mail address.
And many who have e-mail have stated to me “I don’t
really use it” or “I only check it occasionally.”
Our industry is still in love with its fax machines
(and, apparently, the long distance phone bills that go
with them.)
Websites—Company
Brochure Type
Less
than 10% of the leasing industry has a website, although
more and more of you are coming on line with one everyday.
Invariably, the first version is the electronic
equivalent of the company marketing brochure—which is
just fine. It
can provide a useful description of the type of business
the company seeks, transaction parameters, employee names
and qualifications and detailed contact information.
It is also much less costly to maintain and change
whenever an updated is needed.
Prospects and other interested parties can also
be directed to it by just the web address on the business
card, reducing the costs and lag time in mailing them
a hard copy.
Websites—E-commerce
Enabled
A
few dozen or so equipment leasing websites have been set
up to take applications over the web.
(The numbers are higher for consumer vehicle lessors.)
But that is about as far as the e-commerce process
goes for even them.
Once the application comes in, it is back to paper
and faxes. However,
at least one lessor has tied in an automated credit scoring
and approval process—and then it is back to traditional
documentation.
What should lessors be doing?
In
this era of hyper-competitiveness and commodity pricing
on most lease products, every front and back office economy
and efficiency needs to be fully exploited.
This includes making the best possible use of the
internet and e-commerce. This means:
- Use
e-mail. Get
an address, put in on your business card, and check
your mail at least twice a day.
There
are no long distance charges, documents can be included
as attachments, mail that needs to be seen by others
can be easily forwarded, and replies can be sent with
just a tap on the reply button.
Also, the netiquette of e-mail is brevity.
Even typos are tolerated more than with written
correspondence.
I hardly use my fax machine anymore.
The day they will be found primarily in museums
is coming.
- Set
up a company website.
Many
say that they want to wait until they can be sure to
“do it right.”
There is no such thing and waiting is a deadly
game in the hyper-speed of “internet time.”
Even if you put up only one page with your name,
address, phone and fax number, and e-mail address, the
time to do it is yesterday.
Thereafter, you can either slowly or rapidly
evolve your website to meet your needs.
“Now though Imperfect” is better than “Perfect
but Later” on the web.
It
takes only a modest amount of additional effort to put
up the web version of your company brochure.
It only needs to be scanned and re-formatted
a bit. It
is a fast and inexpensive process.
- Start
planning and implementing an e-commerce strategy.
The
obvious starting place is a website-based application
process. Later,
you can add an automated credit-scoring and conditional
approval component.
If you are really aggressive, you can do all
of your documentation electronically.
While the truly paperless office of the future
may never quite arrive, it moves closer and closer all
the time.
Also,
these strategies are not only for funding sources but
for every single lease broker as well.
Prospective lessees are searching the internet
for lessors to lease them equipment.
We get a tremendous amount of e-mail at The
International Leasing Resource asking if we know a
lessor who will do deal “X.”
The
internet is not just a tool, it is a marketplace.
It
is a real space where people get together, and more and
more they are getting together there to do business.
You need to be there too.
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