The 10 Most Active Vendor Leasing companies 2019

www.insightssuccess.com
March 2019
VOL-03
March-2019
ISSUE-03
Leasing Evolution
–A Fully-fledged
Financing Solution
Digi-Payments
The Age of Disruptive
Banking through Digital
Payment Solutions
Casey Mitchell
Senior Vice
President of Sales
Exhibiting Curiosity, Agility, and Tenacity

E
Temporary Business Requirements?
Resolved.
ost of the times, many budding entrepreneurs find it difficult to procure funds from other financial institutions.
MHence, they prefer starting business with minimal investments available. As the contemporary business world is
stepping ahead along with the continually rising globalization, emerging markets, and growing competition, small
scale businesses are facing complexities in setting their premises and processes, leading to unendurable financial crises.
Consider a small scale startup with team of few employees, who need multiple systems and other assets to set a business.
Being a startup, it may prefer leasing computers and other assets instead of buying them, as this will allow an entrepreneur to
invest his/ her available funds into other productive things. This instance entails the need of leasing, where lessor allows
lessee to use the asset in exchange of specified payments, resolving the lessee’s temporary requirement of the asset.
Similarly, when turning the coin towards customer’s side, buying any heavy equipment, appliances or maybe land becomes
complex for them. They have to think thrice or more about buying, due to their financial problems. Many people struggle
paying full prices upfront, and meet unaffordable immediate payment terms, especially while paying for big-ticket items. On
the other hand, it becomes challenging for vendor of high-priced equipment to close a deal with clients unable to pay all the
capital upfront. This is where the concept of vendor leasing turn the heads.
Vendor leasing is not only fulfilling the finance needs, but also effectively build the vendor-customer relationship. From need
generation to engagement and evaluation, documentation and quotation, releasing of funds, post purchase, the whole
operational process of leasing is evolving. Comprehending its need, few vendor leasing solutions providers are fuelling the
growth and innovation of their customers with their smart financing solutions. They are enabling the vendors of high-priced
equipment to reach the maximum potential of their business.

“
Why to own your temporary requirements,
when they are available on lease?
“
Hitesh Dhamani
Taking into consideration the factors of speed, efficiency and convenience of straight-through processing in delivering finance
solutions, Insights Success has curated a list of “The 10 Most Active Vendor Leasing Companies in 2019,” which are
empowering vendor financing industry by enabling businesses to proactively optimize their sales processes.
Our cover story features Amur Equipment Finance, a nationally ranked independent equipment finance provider, dedicated
to ensuring its customers are equipped to grow and succeed. AmurEF is dedicated to ensuring that its customers are equipped
with the right financing structure to grow and succeed as they purchase new business essential assets. Following a significant
capital investment in 2013, and a strengthening of its leadership team, it became one of the largest US equipment finance
companies. This edition also includes JSC LC Europlan, a leading car leasing company in Russia that leases cars,
commercial vehicles and smaller construction equipment to legal entities and private individuals.
Also, make sure to scroll through the articles written by our in-house editorial team and CXO standpoints of some of the
leading industry experts to have a brief taste of the sector.
Happy reading!

CONTENTS
Amur Equipment Finance
ExhibitingCuriosity,Agility,
andTenacity
08
Cover Story
24
JSC LC Europlan:
Enhancing Growth
of Car Leasing in
Russian Markets

Digi-Payments
The Age of Disruptive
Banking through Digital
Payment Solutions
20
Expert’s Column
The Role of
Consultants for
Every Business Stage
18
Leasing Evolution
A Fully-fledged
Financing Solution
32
Benchmarking Future
What a tech CEO
can teach your
business about digital
28
Industry Trends
Key POS Trends
Reshaping the
Retail Sector
36
Experts Insights
Block chain- Savior
of the
Logistics Industry
38

Editor-in-Chief
Pooja M. Bansal
Managing Editor
Anish Miller
Executive Editor
Hitesh Dhamani
Assistant Editors
Jenny Fernandes
Bhushan Kadam
Visualizer
David King
Art & Design Director
Amol Kamble
Associate Designer
Shubham Mahadik
Co-designer
Rahul Kavanekar
Senior Sales Manager Co-designer
Passi D.
Business Development Manager
Peter Collins
Marketing Manager
John Matthew
Sales Executives
David, Kevin, Mark, Avadhut
Technical Head
Jacob Smile
Business Development Executives
Steve, Joe, Alan, Anup
Technical Specialist
Aditya
Digital Marketing Manager
Marry D'Souza
SME-SMO Executive
Prashant Chevale
Research Analyst
Patrick James
Circulation Manager
Database Management Technology Consultant
Robert Brown Stella Andrew David Stokes
Insights Success Media Tech LLC
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sales@insightssuccess.com
March, 2019
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Casey Mitchell
Senior Vice
President of Sales

Cover Story
Exhibiting Curiosity, Agility,
and Tenacity

Buying equipment or technology has become
easier due to the increasing prevalence of vendor
leasing. Leasing makes it easier for business
owners to buy equipment or invest in new technology by
spreading the costs of their equipment purchases over
time. A small-town company with a big ambition to be
the best independent equipment finance company in
North America, Amur Equipment Finance is well on
its way to support this growth model.
Amur Equipment Finance started in 1996 in Grand
Island, Nebraska. AmurEF is dedicated to ensuring that
its customers are equipped with the right financing
structure to grow and succeed as they purchase new
business essential assets. Following a significant capital
investment in 2013, and a strengthening of its leadership
team, it became one of the largest US equipment finance
companies. Today, AmurEF is a national ranked
independent commercial equipment finance provider that
employs more than 120 employees across the U.S.
AmurEF focuses on heartland industries ranging from
transportation to manufacturing, construction, and
agriculture. It also continues to develop expert
knowledge about emerging technology sectors to support
their acquisition as they become mainstays of
tomorrow’s economy.
AmurEF’s uniqueness and ambitions are symbolized by
its unusual symbol and mascot: the Amur leopard. One
of the world’s rarest species, the Amur leopard lives on
the other side of the world, along the Amur River in
snow-covered Siberia. Its defining characteristics of
curiosity, agility and tenacity, the Amur leopard captures
the company’s curiosity to learn about its customers’
specific needs, its agility to grow and change as markets
and industries evolve, and most importantly, its tenacity
to do what it takes to provide a valuable service to its
customers.
AmurEF’s philosophy is that a service orientated culture
may end with the customer, but must begin with the
company’s internal values “Our vision is to become the
industry’s employer of choice. To be the best, means we
must hire and retain the best people, and to do this we
must provide every member of our team with a career
that gives them a sense of pride and allows them to
grow,” Mostafiz ShahMohammed, CEO, explained.
“People are the engine of every great business and our
people are core to making us great,” he added.
transportation, construction, commercial and industrial
equipment, technology, food service, agriculture,
packaging, and energy. The company offers customized
finance programs, including some with prompt credit
decisions and same-day funding for its business
customers and vendor partners. It draws upon years of
asset financing knowledge, diverse industry coverage
and situation-specific underwriting expertise to provide
fast, friendly and flexible financing solutions. With a
dedicated support team on staff, AmurEF is active in
both small-ticket and middle market lending,
underwriting exposures between $10k to $2MM across a
wide range of credit profiles and with financing terms of
up to 84 months.
An Ardent Salesperson
One of the integral members of the AmurEF team in both
a management and leadership role is its Senior Vice
President of Sales, Casey Mitchell. He oversees its
western division, located in Mission Viejo, California.
Casey has been with AmurEF for over five years and acts
as the face of company to trade organizations, customers,
and vendor partners to help solidify and build
relationships. He has deep expertise in market
penetration, client and vendor program development,
risk analysis, structuring and program development. His
efforts contribute to the overall health of the company.
Building Relationships
In an increasingly automated environment, AmurEF
holds true to its small-town, people-focused roots.
Maintaining relationships remain the backbone of its
business and how it differentiates itself from the
“fintech” upstarts of the world. The company continues
to adopt value-added technology and efficiencies to
improve performance and customer service. It remains
personally in touch with each and every customer to
ensure that their needs are clearly understood and the
highest quality service is delivered.
Bringing out Optimum Efforts
In 2017, Amur Equipment Finance was named a Top Ten
rated national independent equipment finance company.
Customized Finance Programs
AmurEF directly serves business owners and vendor
partners in equipment-intensive industries including

“
AmurEF is a Top Twenty
vendor channel
origination company
that customizes
programs for a wide
“
variety of suppliers and
businesses nationwide.

““
AmurEF is a nationally ranked
independent equipment finance provider,
dedicated to ensuring its customers are
equipped to grow and succeed.

The company is also certified as a great workplace by the
independent analysts at Great Place to Work®, which
evaluates workplace cultures across the globe.
Additionally, several AmurEF executives have been
recognized with Stevie® Awards for exemplary
accomplishments and contributions in their professional
fields. The company employs the second highest number
of CLFP (Certified Lease and Finance Professionals)
designees nationwide in the equipment finance and
leasing industry, with 19 employees currently certified.
And of course, AmurEF has symbolically adopted an
Amur Leopard in Siberia by donating to endangered
animal funds.
The company believes that its employees, their
happiness and sense of purpose, all contribute in a
meaningful way to bringing out its best efforts, and how
they are treated is reflected in its relationships with
customers, vendors and partners. Its core values,
including Commitment, Integrity, Continuous
Improvement, Teamwork, Results Driven, and Fun are
the essence of its identity. AmurEF employees are
encouraged to come forward with ideas for community
and charity events to participate in. The company
encourages paid time off to do volunteer work as it
builds teamwork and brings out the best of every team
member. AmurEF is committed to supporting community
organizations and efforts. The company is of firm belief
that every employee plays a significant role in helping to
build and define the company’s culture and values.
Leveraging Flexibility
According to AmurEF, vendor partners face a variety of
challenges, from rising input costs, to tight labor markets
for key personnel, new competitors enticed by an
expanding economy, and the risk of technological
obsolescence. To navigate these challenges, vendors
need a finance partner who is able to provide timely and
consistent underwriting outcomes, and an “end-to-end”
service that leaves every customer satisfied. AmurEF
also provides technical integration to its vendors, such as
marketing support, quote tools, and application portals,
in a way that is a visible or transparent, as active or as
passive as any vendor requires. Most importantly
however AmurEF maintains a full service to every
vendor regardless of size that is built around good oldfashioned
human resources.
Disciplined Approach
In the opinion of AmurEF, vendor leasing has enjoyed
quite a run in recent years, attracting bank and captive
sources, as well as independents, all taking advantage of
historically low rates. As rates move up and credit
windows tighten, the inevitable cycle of industry
turnover will commence. According to the company,
banks may jettison their equipment finance arms and
brokerages, and independents could lose access to
capital, captives might become risk averse. All but the
best of credits will see difficulties in getting adequate
service.
Since the mid-90s, AmurEF has a track record of
maintaining its relevance across all markets and through
multiple economic cycles. Its disciplined approach to
underwriting and deployment of capital ensures that its
vendor partners will be able to draw on its strength when
their customers will need it the most.
Showcasing Excellence
“A vital point of success is a leasing partner that we are
able to work with. By working with Amur we’ve found
that. We’re very happy to be a close partner.” - Kevin
Abergel, VP of Sales and Marketing, MGI USA.
“Amur has been instrumental in allowing Diebold
Nixdorf to work with a number of franchisee
organizations in fulfilling their POS solutions.” - Francis
Carrillo, Project Manager, Retail Division, Diebold
Nixdorf.
“They work hard to listen and work through a
customer’s “story” on the tougher credits. The team is
always exceptional, I am very happy with all my Amur
Equipment Finance contacts.” - Drew Fisher, F&I
Manager, Utility Trailer Sales Southeast Texas, Inc.

Our philosophy and focus is
to build sustainable business
across all economic cycles.
““

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Expert’s Column
of
The ROLE
CONSULTANTS
for
Every
BUSINESS
Stage
Every business owner and executive comes to the
realization and fear that they don’t know what they
don’t know at some point in the game. To leap
beyond this fundamental hurdle, wise leaders lean on
experts to help fill in the gap. Experts such as CPAs,
attorneys, bankers, mentors, and consultants are routinely
sought by successful business owners for guidance, advice,
and support that can be promptly made effective. Gaps in
business are essentially analyzed to determine the best,
quickest, simplest, or most cost-effective solution, which is
then developed and finally implemented by consultants in
various niches every minute of the day.
Consulting is a big industry for a reason. Businesses have a
high risk of failure. Failure is easy, and failure is hard. With
the assistance of a consultant, businesses have a much
better chance of survival. Let’s take a look at how
consulting can work at every stage of a company.
Start-up / Pre-revenue
This stage of a business is filled with passion and dreams.
The owner is typically a technician within the industry
breaking free from the constraints of their boss or is a
dreamer of great things in general. Problems arise when the
many components of running a business the right way
interfere and bog down this solopreneur. Seemingly simple,
but highly important, responsibilities such as accounting,
operations, and marketing can quickly overwhelm and lead
to failure.
Bringing in a consultant at this stage or prior to start up can
save the solopreneur from a tremendous amount of stress.
The consultant can walk the owner through the hurdles of
business with ease and experience. Establishing systems,
creating procedures, and building plans for sales and
marketing will prepare the busy start-up for successful
growth through to the small business phase.
Mom & Pop Shop
Mom & Pop Shops are what we refer to small businesses
with 1-25 employees. This may be a small generational
business or a growing start-up that is hiring friends and
family to help get the job done. One day, the goals become
too large and the owners take on more than they can handle
in an effort to grow. What these owners don’t realize is that
they need to have defined systems in place, along with
communication, leadership, and a growth plan to move
beyond Mom & Pop Shop status to Small Business status
without suffering collapse.
Small Business
The small business typically has 1-100 employees which
may also include many family and friends. Some systems
are in place, yet there lacks organization and
communication leading the owner down a path of “too
many chiefs” or not enough oversight. At this stage,
business owners may discover they have a lot of people
doing the same thing, no formal processes and a lot of fires
to put out. Stress once again takes hold of the business
owner in a way that may make them question closing shop
and going back into the workforce.
Consulting at these stages require in-depth analysis of
where the company currently exists on the spectrum and
identifying gaps in the foundation of the organizational
structure. Analysis will require a look at financial
performance, operations workflow and processes, systems
integration and utilization, human resources suite of
knowledge and procedures, centralized standard operating
procedures, marketing plans and strategy, and more.
Analyzing each component of the business will bring to
light top layer and secondary issues that the consultant will
prioritize to match urgency and effective organizational
modeling for proper implementation. Business owners
should expect this process to take some time, but in the end
18
March 2019

About the Author
April Salsbury, MBA is the owner
of Salsbury & Co., a business
management consulting firm. After
growing an organization from 15
employees to 100 employees and
seven locations, including
international distribution and
working in legislation for industry
oversight and accreditation, she
believed her experience as a CEO
and a “builder” could help small
business owners avoid certain
hurdles and gain valuable insight.
April Salsbury
Owner
Salsbury & Co.
the business will operate like a well-oiled machine ready
for growth.
Mid-size Business & Enterprise
The Mid-size Business has successfully identified the needs
of a growing business. Most companies of this size (101-
999 employees) and of the Enterprise size (1,000+
employees) have established policies and procedures,
human resources, systems integration with maximized
utilization, and have a plan to move forward. These areas
will experience ongoing expansion enhancement over time.
Mid-size companies will start to departmentalize and create
an executive team for improved oversight and strategy
development. Problems Mid-size companies face are
keeping everyone working toward the same goal,
communication, effective leadership and management
development, mergers and acquisitions, continuous
improvement of systems and operational workflow and
recruiting for longevity all while staying on top of their next
strategic move and pacing change. Enterprises continue to
refine and silo roles within the company; however they
experience many of the same issues a mid-size company
does.
niche of service. This is when the: Branding Consultant is
brought in to develop a brand or revitalize a brand for a
segment of the business; Lean Specialists are brought in to
examine one segment of the manufacturing process; System
Analyst is brought in to create functional APIs to connect
the 25 software programs used by the company to prevent
errors and reduce time wasted on duplicating entries; and
possibly, Coaches are brought in to develop a mid-level
management team.
There is a need and a place for Consultants at every stage of
business, even before the first signs of failure. Bringing a
Consultant into the company earlier in the process will
make the transition to the next big step easier and the longterm
outcome of the business much better. Although
business owners may have a difficult time justifying the
cost of consulting, especially if funds are limited, the
desired end result has greater potential to be realized in a
shorter timeframe. Companies that have successfully
worked with consultants see the value of their work in the
overall success of the business and often retain consultants
for future projects.
At Mid-size and Enterprise level, Consultants are brought
into a company on a project basis and will be focused on a
March 2019 19

Digi-Payments
he way people make payments are changing faster due to the improved integration of digital technology. This has
Tbenefited the industry with increased competition and consumer demands.
The changes can be witnessed in Travel, E-commerce, Household Bill payments etc. The recent integration of technology in
payment solutions makes transactions fast and seamless and can be done at the comfort of your homes.
Although we are witnessing a considerable change in the payment solution industry, there is still a consistent use of the cash
and cards, which solely depends on the geographical setting. In some places, people prefer cash and cards, while in other
places, they encourage the more use of digital solutions; for example: The United States and Canada. Analysis has shown that
20
March 2019

in these areas, they are likely to switch completely to
technology enabled payment solutions.
The payment solution processes will become more
innovative because of the following disruptive trends;
· Digital Banking and Remote Payment Approval
As the younger aged masses are turning up to technology
more than the traditional mediums, there is a notion that
most payment solutions will be done through digitalenabled
mediums rather than cash or cheque. This will
result in more engagement of mobile phones and digital
software applications.
Various business outlets are accepting more of mobile
payment which is helping them to improve customer
experience. The addition of instant alerts, appreciation
notifications and instant payment delivery is making this
innovation more interesting.
· Customer-Focused Strategy as a Priority
Customer experience post business encounter is what
makes a difference in the industry. Digital banking solutions
are improving the way customers feel after making their
payments. In the past years, one need to stand in a queue in
the bank before they can make even the smallest
transaction, but the integration of technology innovation has
reduced the stress to the lowest level. We can witness
improved services and instant expense management which
is helping everyone that is using this medium to stay above
the crowd
· Improved Customer Satisfaction through Rewards
A customer tends to check back on the sales-person who
gave them a tip or discount after purchase. This is also
applicable in payment solution. After people makes a
purchase online or even via cards and the seller offers them
a certain percentage of discount, they will always want to
come back. The good news is that most business enterprises
are supporting this idea in collaboration with the finance
institutions.
· FinTech Collaboration and Expansion of Networks
The innovation in payment solution is incorporating
feasibility of resource management between the financial
and non-financial organizations. Through this development,
the result will lead to easy merging of both the traditional
March 2019
medium of resource management concepts with the recent
and digitalized concepts. Various financial organizations
that may not be able to handle the process of migrating
from the traditional format to the digitalized platform finds
ease in doing so by partnering with technology companies.
Organizational growth is measured both in market value,
infrastructure and the extent of their networks. The
integration of digital technology advances in payment
provisions helps especially the finance-oriented
establishments to easily expand their reach, even to the
most hidden places in the world. This helps to touch the
lives of people no matter the class and status and it repays
with tremendous customer growth.
· Improved Security and Payment by Codes
Security is huge concern when money is involved. People
are so conscious and very inquisitive about how their
money will travel from the sender to the receiver. In so
many cases, they will even think that such platforms as
digitalized mediums are not trustworthy as a single wrong
number can direct their money to unknown destination.
The transaction as of the old was true cheques. But today,
there will be a limited need for those methods, rather,
payment will simply be done by inputting a certain
username and password and your dashboard will be opened.
Through this page, you can easily make every payment. The
age of digitalization is turning the whole process into codebased
and this raises the question of how to stay safe. It is
also believed that for security purposes, the instant
notification of transaction, linking of secured email and
encryption to individual data and disaster-recovery
provisions will lead the innovation to better direction. This
concern has a big deal with blockchain, augmented reality,
IoT and biometrics.
You may be asking how the future will look like with techenabled
payment solutions. As the world is growing and
globalization is gaining a good ground, people blends in to
what they see that is working well. So, as digital payment
solution is making even the life of the lay man on street
easy, more people in the near future will completely adopt
this innovation. It will not harm the financial institutions,
but it will be great if they can migrate or better integrate
some form of technology strategies in their financial
solutions. This change may be slow, but it will be consistent
as the technology changes are not giving room for
procrastination.
21

JSC LC Europlan:
Enhancing Growth of Car Leasing in Russian Markets
The evolution of automotive
industry has witnessed surge of
new trends, and leasing is one
among those trends. Buying this big
ticket possession accompanies with
some additional expenses. Thus,
leasing them becomes more convenient
option, instead of owning them. A
Russian company, JSC LC Europlan
is enhancing this model with its
endeavors to make cars easily available
to Russian businesses and
businessmen. JSC LC Europlan is a
leading car leasing company in Russia.
The company’s capital amounts to
RUR 10 billion and it has BB rating
according to Fitch Ratings. It has built
4,000+ partner suppliers, carried
300,000+ leasing transactions, and
have 2 000+ employees and 80,000+
customers.
The company leases cars, commercial
vehicles and smaller construction
equipment to legal entities and private
individuals. Europlan serves customers
throughout the Russian Federation via
its own distribution network of 74
offices.
In addition, according to survey by
Leaseurope for 2017, JSC LC Europlan
is among Top-15 car leasing companies
in Europe by the volume of new
business, and it remains the leader in
car leasing segment among Russian
companies.
Integrated Servings
Europlan participates in the automotive
industry-specific support programs
provided by the Russian Government,
while it launches its own subsidizing
program from time to time. As JSC LC
Europlan has a record of big shares of
the market in truck and car leasing, it
provides manufacturers’ discounts to
its customers. It also tries to make the
financial lease period comfortable to
the maximum extent offering
integrated support measures. It
provides discounts for vehicle disposal
and trade-in programs offered by
dealerships to legal entities. This is
how the company strives to satisfy the
existing deferred demand for cars and
trucks in Russia. Its integrated vehicle
fleet services includes vehicle
insurance, registration of vehicles with
State Vehicle Inspectorate and at State
Technical Authority, a fuel program,
roadside assistance program, buy-out
of vehicles, delivery of vehicles
throughout Russia.
From a Credit Expert to the CEO
An elite team of JSC LC Europlan is
led by its CEO, Alexander
Mikhaylov. Alexander joined
Europlan team in 2001 as a credit
expert. Since then, he developed and
performed various functions within the
company. Since 2011, Alexander was
responsible for finance attraction,
treasury and investor relations, and
since 2013 he was in charge of finance
and procurement.
In February 2016, he was appointed as
a President and Chairman of the
Management Board of Europlan public
company. Since November 18, 2016 he
has been holding the position of the
company’s Chief Executive Officer. On
June 30, 2017 he also took the coveted
position of CEO of JSC LC Europlan.
Apart from CEO, Alexander also
serves as a Vice President and a
member of the Council of United
Leasing Association, a major Russian
professional union of leasing industry
companies.
An Exceptional Approach
Europlan primarily focuses on the
quality of financial services and tries to
make it exceptional. It also strives to
simplify the business with its
customers, both in terms of
transactions’ documenting and
communications within the period of
leasing. The company offers an
independent solution to each of its
customer which is most suitable for
their needs. For example, it selects car
and trucks of any make and models,
not only those, which are sold by a
particular manufacturer.
As Europlan offers the widest range of
car services at the Russian leasing
market, its customers not only enjoy
the most beneficial terms for a car
lease, but also have access to
convenient and beneficial maintenance
services throughout the car life cycle.
The company is very much flexible and
swift, both when concluding a leasing
contract with customers, making it
done within 2 hours from the first
contact, and when it brings new
products and services to the market.
Aditionally, one of its exceptional
24 March 2019

‘‘
Last year, we defined
the values of our company
as Team Responsible for
Achievements, the first
letters of these words
‘‘
make abbreviation CODE
in the Russian language.
Alexander Mikhaylov
CEO
JSC LC Europlan
features is its financing scheme. It
never covers costs of servicing
customers with smaller fleet with the
income gained on major customers.
Increasing Awareness of Leasing
Scheme
Leasing industry is constantly
changing and thus, facing challenges as
well. According to JSC LC Europlan,
running a leasing business in Russia is
a challenge itself. The key challenge is
that the use of leasing scheme to buy a
car is poorly developed in Russia (less
than 10% of total sales of cars and light
commercial vehicle versus 30%-49%
in Western countries). Europlan, being
the leader of car leasing market,
responds to that challenge by
increasing customer awareness by
promoting it through its content
marketing products (for example,
leasing.ru portal), Web, and mailing
campaigns.
Another challenge has recently
emerged, namely VAT increase in
Russia. It has resulted in higher car and
truck prices, due to which the number
of transactions in the automotive
market is reducing. But, Europlan take
this new challenge as a need to work
harder and to invest in business.
Moving Steadily towards Future
According to Europlan, in the more
distant future, the role of leasing
companies would be to ensure higher
mobility for their customers (using not
only cars but also other transportation
means). The company envisions
leasing more and more often
transforms for the customer from a
way of buying car in a more financially
beneficial manner to a service of car
provision for possession and use with
all life cycle-associated services, and
customer only pays lease charge. The
list of its strategic products includes
leasing services for individuals, which
is almost unknown in Russia for mass
consumer, operational leasing and
development of complementary
services.
Testimonials from Europlan’s
Clienteles
“They offered terms for us, a startup
company at the time, on which we
were able to buy our first vehicle. The
cooperation was interesting, productive
and comfortable for both parties.”-
Sibmontazhspetsstroy Group of
Companies (GC SMSS), Construction
Industry
“There is a game called Associations,
which we manufacture. If we play the
game, then Europlan is associated for
us with civilized leasing.”- Desyatoye
Korolevstvo LLC, Toys’ Manufacturer
“If your business stands still, you lose.
That is why we draft now a new
leasing contract. We are growing,
together with Europlan.”- TSC LLC,
Supplier of Construction Materials
March 2019
25

Benchmarking Future
About the Author
Pam Bateson is an expert coach and
mentor in business, training others to
Masters level qualifications and
supervising coaches. She has worked
within the healthcare, retail, hotels,
construction, media, agencies, education
and public sector. She specialises in
Coaching, Mentoring, Employee
Engagement, Change Management,
Learning and Development and
Organisational Design. She has worked
with all levels in organisations from
graduates to the CEO. She has
designed change programmes that
connect projects, outcomes, training and
coaching. The performance outcomes
have been outstanding. She is CEO
and Co-Founder at Thrive Partners.
28
March 2019

am Bateson set up Thrive
PPartners, an on-demand
coaching company, three
years ago. In this article, she
shares her point of view on how
important humans are in a more
digital world, what she’s learned
as a tech CEO, and what this
means when you’re looking to
use tech in a way that’s both
disruptive and works for
customers.
March 2019
29

In October 2015, I gave up a successful
career as a management consultant and
coach to set up Thrive Partners. Lots of
people thought I was crazy. I was
approaching 50, with two children still
at home. But for the decade running up
to that decision, I’d been thinking
about a better way to deliver coaching
– supported by digital, to share more
widely the coaching tools I’d used to
help clients for many years.
This was the business I set out to build
three years ago. Today, we’re working
with 25 clients on five continents –
delivering our own brand of ondemand
coaching, backed with insights
for the whole business. The learning
curve has been steep – particularly for
someone who, by their own
confession, didn’t have a lot of
experience in learning technology. So
here, I wanted to share some of the
things we’ve learned – and what it
might mean for your business.
Dream big
I didn’t really set out to build a
business that would be considered
disruptive, but my background as a
lean engineer and coach did mean that
we ripped up the rulebook when it
came to the coaching industry. We
scrapped the idea that you needed to
meet face to face, and that sessions had
to last an hour, or even two hours. And
we made it a lot easier for people to
access a coach to answer the questions
they had there and then – increasing
access so people could chat to an
expert within an hour.
Working with my co-founder, we then
rebuilt the industry by asking the
biggest questions we could imaging.
What if we could make coaching
available to whole organisations? What
if we could get listening as valued as
speaking? And what if we could help
organisations learn as quickly as
individuals?
I found these questions irresistible: I
wanted to do for coaching what Uber
had done for getting a taxi, Netflix had
done for home entertainment, and
Tinder had done for dating. It’s these
big dreams that have galvanised our
success in the last few years – and
which has set us in the right direction
for the future.
Build for modern users
Despite big dreams, we’ve also made
our fair share of mistakes! A lot of
them mistakes happened when we took
our attention away from our end
customers. It sounds obvious to see it
there on the page. But it can be easy to
lose sight of the customers that matter
most, especially when, as a tech CEO,
sometime we get preoccupied with a
shiny piece of new technology.
So, what to consider first when it
comes to users? The main thing to bear
in mind is that they expect experiences
that are easy and fast to access – a shift
brought about by what we call the
‘Amazon Prime Mindset.’ In this era,
clunky user experiences reduce the
chances of uptake of services. In short,
if your technology can’t match or
exceed the quality of digital experience
people get in their everyday lives, then
you’ll need to go back to the drawing
board.
Create wins for the many
So, if users come first – who else can
we harness the power of technology
for?
Our answer? Everyone else in the
system.
Early on in the development of our
MyThrive platform, we realised that
delivering digitally would enable us to
do more than just scale and facilitate
coaching in global organisations; it
would also mean we could spot trends
and patterns within communities of
users, in organisations or society at
large. Just as carefully listening has a
powerful and transformative role in
one-to-one coaching conversations,
carefully listening to and analysing
anonymised version of the
conversations we host has a powerful
and transformative role within whole
organisations.
The whole-system insights we
produced has helped to make sales
processes smoother, improved
communications and created more
opportunities for people to learn.
Keep it human
With suicide being the biggest killer of
men under 45, loneliness sweeping
through developed economies in
epidemic proportions and a third of all
young people suffering from anxiety, I
strongly believe that we have a duty to
keep talking to each other as a society.
We believe that keeping the art of
conversation alive in this digital age is
essential; only humans can master
creativity, empathy, humour and
imagination in a way that’s compelling.
Information is everywhere, so we’re
using technology differently – to offer
real human experiences at scale, at any
time of the day, whenever our clients
need a conversation, for everything
you can’t Google.
And what of the future? Curiously,
even the structures of artificial
intelligence and machine learning look
set to mimic human patterns. It’s still
early days, but leaders in this space
talk of ‘deep learning’ with AI – by
layering up different tools that connect
in the same way as our brain’s neural
networks.
And so, the next three years?
My recent experiences have led us to
ask even bigger questions than we did
to begin with – which I suspect will
lead to our next irresistible set of
adventures! What if we could
transform learning management
systems into learning ecosystems?
What if any community of learners
could connect with any community of
teachers? And what if a better
understanding of outcomes from
learning could help both individuals,
organisations and society to thrive?
I for one believe there are exciting
times ahead.
30 March 2019

Leasing Evolution
A Fully-fledged
FINANCING
S O L U T I
N
Purchasing fixed asset is still a complex task.
Thus, leasing becomes the preferred solution to
fix the current requirements of the asset. There’s
a famous quote by an American Publisher, Donald B.
Grant which states, “Why own a cow when the milk is so
cheap? All you need is the milk and not the cow.” Here
cow can be compared as ‘an asset’ and milk as ‘right to
use asset’. Similarly, a person can use machinery under a
leasing agreement to manufacture products, instead of
owning it. For instance, for freelancer buying a single
computer probably makes sense. While on the other
hand, a startup with team of several employees will need
multiple systems, hence, it may want to look into leasing
computers. These instances put a shallow light on the
concept of leasing, where lessor allows lessee to use the
asset in exchange of specified payments, which
eventually resolves the lessee’s temporary requirement
of the asset. Ultimately, leasing becomes a win-win
situation that benefits both the parties involved in it.
It is often when customers decide to buy any heavy
equipment, appliances or maybe land, second thoughts
strike over their mind on buying, due to their financing
problems. There are many people who couldn’t afford to
pay the full prices upfront or meet such immediate
payment terms, especially for big-ticket items. On the
other hand, it becomes challenging for vendor of high-
priced equipment to close a sale/deal with clients not
able to pay all the capital upfront. In order to aid this
situation, the concept of vendor leasing was emerged.
Vendor leasing is a novel financing solution that allows
an additional option to customers, through which they
can choose besides cash-on- delivery and 30 days terms
payment. Aligning with other leasing companies,
vendors offer leases to their customers, where outside
leasing firm substitutes as the vendor’s captive finance
company. This way vendor leasing helps in preventing
vendor’s clients from walking away from their company
without making any purchase.
Operational Aspects
Generally, vendor leasing is a pay-for-use model for
customers, while for vendors it is way of stimulating
their sale. Undertaking this program, many companies
are providing convenient and affordable financing
options to their customers at the time and place of
purchase, which is ultimately resulting in selling more
products. A significant element of vendor financing is the
established relationship between the borrower and the
vendor.
Most of the equipment vendor lessors decide to
outsource equipment leasing, and rest of them make it an
32
March 2019

in-house financing program. By offering a financing
program to customers, the vendor makes a cash sale
while receiving the funding from the finance company.
This enables a vendor to have additional funding
available for its companies’ own cash flow needs.
Considering the structure of the deal, the vendor collects
the money and then turns it over to the finance company,
or as per case the customer pays the money to the finance
company directly. It is possible that credit checking and
operational administration may also be handled by the
finance company.
When taken tax deductions into consideration, vendor
leasing can be proven to be beneficial for tax credits. By
taking advantage of Section 179 Qualified Financing, a
firm can write off the full amount of the equipment
without even paying the full amount. This way a firm
may be able to deduct its payments as a business expense
depending on the lease.
Digitalization of Leasing
Be it appliances, gadgets, or space, everything is
available at lease. According to the Equipment Leasing
Association of America, there are approximately 80
percent of U.S. companies those who prefers to use some
or all their equipment on lease and there are some
thousands of equipment-leasing firms nationwide
catering to that demand. Taking into consideration the
current demand, there comes a need to use digital
technologies to develop new and enhanced customer
propositions or risk losing market share.
It has become significant for finance providers to
embrace the potential for intelligent software to
transform their business operations by automating
manual tasks and allowing employees to focus more on
customer service excellence. From need generation to
engagement and evaluation, documentation and
quotation, releasing of funds, post purchase, the whole
operational process of leasing can be evolved through
means of digitalization. In a digital world, the entire
customer journey has multiple touch points and mediums
such as web, app, telephone, and even social media to
capture customer experience and feedback. The data
collected can be further analyzed to build a continuous
improvement journey that improves customer
experience, loyalty, and ultimately revenue growth.
The concept of vendor leasing aptly justifies the idea of
leasing the treatise, “Wealth is in use, not ownership,”
which was written around 350 BC. Considering the rapid
evolution of markets, we can say that vendor leasing is
changing the landscape of various industrial sectors.
March 2019
33

Industry Trends
POS Trends
Key
Reshaping
theRetail Sector
In recent times, the retail industry hasn’t seen a more
exciting invention since the invention of cash register.
With new and innovative technologies helping shape
both online and offline experiences for consumers, the
landscape is continuously changing in a way which was
unimaginable even few years back. The best part is that
there seems to be no end of the innovation, which only
influencing the purchase decision of the consumers.
Nowadays the main focus of retailers is to create a safe,
engaging, and unique shopping experience for its
consumers, it’s very important for the retailers to
understand the importance of Big Data and in-store
analytics and adapting to the cloud. With the retail industry
at the verge of massive transformation, we are listing out
few key trends that everyone needs to know to be
successful in the ecosystem that is transforming quickly.
Multi-system Integration
Multi-system integration with various applications gets the
utmost priority from top retailers. Most of the retailers list
out POS integration with other applications as a key priority
alongside the implementation of dynamic marketing content
through mobile devices. This is mostly due to the retailer’s
interest to store all the customer information and purchase
history in a database, which is completely centralized that
could be easily integrated with multiple applications.
However, in order to do that, a retailer needs to use an ERP
database that can handle all these.
Speed
People always look for quick solutions for everything. A
clock starts ticking the moment a customer enters, no matter
how good the product is, if the process is slow and the
attention to details are missing, then customers will leave
36
disappointed. As a retailer, one cannot please everyone, but
with a modern and efficient POS, the service can be
improved. A modern POS simplifies the communication
between various departments and can save a lot of time for
both the retailer and the customer respectively.
Managing Stocks
Keeping and managing inventory is a nightmare for most of
the retailers, and it’s quite natural. Managing inventory is a
never-ending task and takes a lot of effort, time, and
manpower. However, it is quite important to manage
inventories when it comes to long-time survival. An
efficient POS system always makes the process of
managing the inventory much easier. The best part of a POS
is, one can monitor the status of stocked items, shipped
products, and new orders anytime. This is a huge time saver
for a cumbersome and a tedious process, and eventually
helps retailers to focus on other important aspects of
running the business.
Customized Experience
With POS systems, retailers just need to provide
personalization that scoops out every shopper. Every
passing year, retailers are adapting to personalized
technology solutions that allow an interactive user
experience. Thanks to the emergence of all new mobile
POS technology, now retailers can offer its customers more
choices to accommodate their shopping habits by letting
them to complete transactions anywhere in the store. Now
with the invention of improved POS marketers and
customer service teams can contact the buyer at each point
of their purchase decision. With so much data retailers and
consumers can have better customer service, quicker
payment processes and access to better offers and real-time
personalization.
March 2019

Promotions and Marketing at its Best
Nowadays with the advent of digital technology, marketing
involves maintaining a digital presence as well. A POS can
integrate all the advertised offers with transactions, making
it easier to keep track of all the campaigns. Additionally, it
can integrate with CRM and track customer behavior. When
an offer gets popular among the masses, then the retailer
will see it in his transaction data.
Usage of Big Data analytics
In order to compete with e-commerce, retailers are now
taking the help of Big-Data and in store analytics just to
have a better idea about what’s happening inside the store.
Big-Data analytics helps retailers to track how frequently a
specific item moves from shelf to shopping cart allows
retailers to know the trends that are dominant in the market.
Analytics helps the retail industry in a big way to better
understand consumer purchase pattern and behaviors.
Keeping Track of Employees
To run a business smoothly a retailer, need few people. A
POS system enables to manage them with great accuracy.
With a Point of Sale system in place, employees can sign on
or off easily and the system will automatically log their
work hours and break hours.
Security
Above all, a POS system offers great security protections
that help keeping customer data safe. Retail stores and
businesses are always prime targets for Cyber Criminals,
and a data breach is not good for a business. So, by using
standard encryption and firewall, businesses can be secured
from cyber-attacks and customers can swipe their cards
with a peace of mind.
So, here we have listed out few of the POS trends that will
shape the future of the retail industry. As we look ahead,
these trends will be on focus for both retailers and
customers. The main advantage of an advanced POS system
is greater efficiency and optimization, it links all the
departments together which eventually allows to have better
control over the inventory, better profitability, and to
manage processes in an efficient way.
March 2019
37

Experts Insights
Matthew Telesca
President & CEO
38
March 2019

BLOCK CHAIN-
March 2019
Savior of the Logistics Industry
About the author:
Company founder,
Matthew Telesca serves as
the President and CEO of
MGN Logistics, Inc.
Telesca is a serial
entrepreneur, investor, and
tech enthusiast, who sold
his first company by age 32.
A five-time recipient of Inc.
Magazine’s prestigious
Fastest Growing Private
Companies in America
award, and two-time
nominee for CEO of the
year, Telesca is a long-time
member of The
International society of
Logistics. He was selected
as one of the top 50 most
creative CEOs to watch in
2016 and has been featured
in numerous technology and
logistics magazines.
39

echnology in business continues to evolve and
Tdisrupt major companies and markets. If you need
confirmation of that point, just look at the top 10
retailers fifteen years ago compared to today's list. Nearly
all the largest retailers from a bygone era have either closed
or filed for bankruptcy. They have been replaced by an
online retail model that emphasizes convenience and nearly
unlimited options. Think about what Uber has done to the
taxi industry, or Facebook to the advertising market. Yes,
technology is not only here to stay, but will continue to
influence nearly every part of our lives, and business is not
immune.
In fact, for business, it becomes even more imperative to
stay attuned to these changes and differentiate between
passing fads versus a truly transformative technology. One
such example has been the introduction of blockchain,
originally devised for the digital currency, Bitcoin. The
blockchain technology has since exploded with a vast
number of other potential uses and varying platforms.
However, many main stream businesses have been very
slow to adopt this technology, often taking a wait and see
mentality. And rightly so, if a company is not careful, they
could recklessly spend substantial resources, time and
money, pursuing a technology that could ultimately be a
passing fad. Or worse, bet on a technology that the market
doesn’t assimilate and find them with a worthless platform.
Blockchain, however, in many ways is revolutionary. It
doesn't address make believe problems or over exaggerated
inconveniences, but rather, the real-world challenge that
nearly every transaction involves, that of trust and
incorruptible data. Yes, every transaction of value has the
potential to be corrupted or compromised in today's digital
world. Therein lies the genius of blockchain. It is a
decentralized digital ledger that can guarantee the validity
of a transaction through it distributed registers and secure
validation mechanism. Simply put, it brings the highest
level of accountability to every transaction. With such an
essential key attribute, how could blockchain be anything
other than a revolutionary new technology that will
eventually need to be embraced?
the logistics industries first blockchain based Transportation
Management System (TMS). An early adaptor of webbased
technology and one of the first companies to launch a
fully automated on-line freight platform called
LogisticsQuote, MGN has continued to bring to market
cutting edge technology for the transportation space. These
innovations include its award winning TMS, big data
truckload and LTL pricing apps, sophisticated business
intelligence KPIs and hundreds of API connections. The
company has grown organically and through a series of
private party acquisitions, including offices in
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan,
Florida, and the Dominican Republic.
The company's current undertaking entails utilizing
blockchain's incorruptible ledger to synthesize with
transportation related transactions. With many
transportation processes still being very manual and the
high level of human error or even fraud in the market place,
MGN felt it was ripe timing to introduce a new robust TMS
that offered its users and those interfaced with a higher
level of accountability, true end to end visibility and greater
degree of automation. While several companies in the space
have been focused on the international application, MGN
has concentrated on the domestic LTL and truckload
markets where their blockchain technology would be first to
market.
Today, with fraudulent double brokered loads on the rise,
and shippers losing visibility into this process, we envision
a platform that would end double payments for loads that
have been delivered. We are creating a technology; we
believe will end the insanity of tending a load of value to a
carrier or broker with potentially little or no validation of
who they are. We are creating a platform based on
blockchain technology that will provide the most secure
transportation transactions on earth. And we have a track
record of not just talking or envisioning but delivering on
those innovations.
It's been with this core belief, that MGN Logistics, based
out of Easton, Pennsylvania has been pushing forward with
40 March 2019