|
| July 6, 2000 Bob Rodi takes issue with http://www.leaseexchange.com The Internet and its associated technologies are forcing us all to become more efficient and deliver better pricing and service to our customers. Bottom line here is that if you can't approve and fund the transaction the vendor isn't going to give you the time of day nor will the vendor accept a purchase order from someone who isn't in a position to write the check. I guarantee you that these companies will either step up and take the risks associated with this business or get their clocks cleaned by the risk takers who know how to manage a leasing company. I'll pose my question about a proprietary advantage one more time in a different way. If efficient, real time processing is available to anyone willing to make the investment, how will these dot coms differentiate their product and service without doing something different on the funding end? I have been involved in this type of marketing since before the internet was called the internet. I believe Aaron Ross ( President of http://www.leaseexchange.com ) would have been taking his SAT's about the time we took our first application on Prodigy in 1990. Remember the name of my company back then. It was called the American Lease Exchange. A name and trademark which we still own, by the way. If I considered these guys any kind of a threat I would have my attorneys look into trademark infringement but I really think they're a flash in the pan. I agree with Hal Hayden ( of Capital Stream, who have an internet software product, and his comment on Monday was on the negative selling by strictly internet leasing companies ). I don't think these internet leasing companies get it yet. The main reason they don't get it is that guys like Aaron Ross were being potty trained about the same time you, I, Hal and a lot of others in this business were writing our first leases. During the ( UAEL ) spring conference you and a room full of people heard the funding sources say that they do not support the "commoditization" of the small ticket lease. No one has yet been able to explain to me how the bid/ask process improves customer service. Let me see if I have this right. The customer goes to one of these sights, fills out an application, within 24 hours the customer will receive bids on their transaction from competing banks and lenders. Who are the banks and lenders? Does the customer then have to go negotiate the transaction? Who verifies the information on the application? What if the customer isn't satisfied with the service from the lender that is recommended by the Internet Broker? I will ask the question that I have asked many times before. What proprietary advantage does LeaseExchange.com, Lease/Loan.com, leasepoint.com, elease.com, etc. have over any other broker at this point in time? I just don't see the proprietary selling advantage. I don't believe that the customer will see it either. Vendors demand speed and rapid response. If all the lessee or the vendor cared about was the price the big lenders and banks would have put the small independent lessors, brokers and intermediaries out of business years ago. The smaller company has never had a price advantage and never will. We are in an era of "high tech/high touch". Despite the rhetoric, most of these dot coms don't have a clue as to how to address the customer agenda. If they enjoy any success it will be in under served segments of the leasing market. They will be getting tons of applications from start-ups, credit card processing vendors, ATM vendors, pay phone vendors, satellite TV vendors, etc. Bob
Rodi, www.leasingnews.org
|