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The leasing industry is yet to significantly harness the powers of the
Internet. Despite the hype, the web enabling of the leasing process has
been sporadic at best. While the industry has already taken to the
Internet's obvious convenience for credit scoring and front-end
application processing, a larger and perhaps a more significant impact
on productivity has yet to be realized. The advent of the lease
life-cycle management model can realize this untapped potential for
productivity and, if implemented well, can even directly enhance
profitability. Online lease management and accounting software
certainly has the makings of a paradigm shift in the lessor's approach
to the lease accounting software. More specifically, it holds enough
promise to replace the client/server model just as the client/server
model itself dethroned the main frame.
The Benefits of an Internet Model based Lease Management system
To implement, the Internet model is much simpler than its client/server
based counterpart, demanding nothing more than a secure Internet server
on which the lease accounting software and database reside. Each of the
limitless number of computers accessing the server can run any
operating system, be it Apple Macintosh or Windows 2000, with nothing
more than access to the Internet. By inference, the type of Network and
the leasing software's compatibility to it no longer matters. Even the
physical implementation of the network itself, in laying down the
wiring and connections, becomes redundant when any authorized computer
belonging to any authorized user, is part of the virtual network. In
this respect, especially for lessors with multiple operations in
different locations, the model used in the lease management software is
a boon that takes no more significant effort to tie two computers into
its virtual network as it does 2,000. Even training employees to use
the lease accounting software becomes easy when there is one standard
program worldwide. This immediate scalability and
operating-system/network-independence of the leasing software model
makes it possible for lessors of all sizes to experience IT benefits
unknown in the client/server world.
It would seem that today's nascent Internet technology compromises the
functional power of the client/server model in their leasing software;
complex algorithms required to amortize income or calculate yields
appear hard or even impossible to replicate on a browser. Fortunately,
however, with the growing sophistication of Internet developmental
platforms such as Microsoft's Active Server Pages, Internet
applications run a tight race with client/server technologies. The
Internet based lease accounting software enables yields and
depreciation schedules to be calculated with the same click of a
button. The lease management software facilitates reports to be sorted,
filtered and queried to obtai any conceivable information available in
the database. Income, IDC and residual can be accrued, blended and
separated, just like they are in client/server systems.
Not surprisingly, even technology as complex as an Enterprise Resource
Planning system, simultaneously used for solutions from global
car-manufacturing to domestic chemical-production, runs on
Internet-based applications today similar to the internet based lease
accounting software. Leading ERP vendors including SAP, Oracle
Financials and PeopleSoft, for instance, have tried and tested success
stories of highly versatile and complex system that are browser based.
"Lease Management Software", says Jay Mehra, COO of Odessa
Technologies, Inc., "though sophisticated in its own right, can quite
easily be implemented on the Internet." Despite the complexity,
therefore, the functional powers of traditional models are easily
captured in Internet-based applications.
Functionality of the Internet model and the Lease Management Software
While functionally the Internet application is interchangeable, its
differentiating quality lies in its approach to data. By the very
nature of their technology, client/server systems typically just crunch
numbers. A good Internet based application, on the other hand,
maximizes the value of that data, in addition to maintaining it. This
translates into a direct value-add for the lessor's operational
efficiency. Sales staff can, for instance, be allowed to access the
leasing software from anywhere they can connect to the Internet. During
negotiations, they can obtain historic information about the lessee to
make informed decisions for new business opportunities through the
lease management software. The traditional one-way pipelines of data
delivery thus become forums for information exchange.
Equally important, as shown by the diagram above, the new channels of
Internet-driven communication can now enhance the lessor's external
relationships. Odessa Technologies, developer of a wholly web-based
Lease management and accounting software, uses a series of independent
web sites that ties the lessor with its various business partners.
Through their lessee web site, lessees can get online help, access
important account information, download invoices and even make secure
Net payments enabled by the lease management software. Moreover, by
leveraging the critical data residing within the Internet application,
the lessor can even customize business promotions based on the
individual lessee logging onto the system. Far from being just a tool
that manages a part of the leasing business, lease management software
thus becomes a way of conducting and even marketing the business.
Through the Internet model the leasing software is able to bring about
new sources of productivity, both direct and implied, are thus created
from business relationships that are fuelled by information flow.
LeaseWave© - A new Wave in Lease Accounting Software
While the advantages of Internet-based applications are obvious, there
is a conspicuous absence of such technology in the leasing industry. It
is this gap between the ideal technology and what is typically
available that Odessa Technologies, Inc. is fulfilling. With the
release of LeaseWave©, a technology built entirely on Microsoft's
Internet platforms, Odessa brings the lease management process online.
Through LeaseWave© and technological collaborations with companies such
as CapitalStream and Ivory Consulting, the company offers a
comprehensive solution that is entirely Internet based by way of the
lease accounting software. LeaseWave©, at its core, provides for
complete asset management and lease accounting functionality, allowing
the lessor to efficiently manage any number of lease portfolios in the
leasing software. Beyond this core, LeaseWave© provides a series of
interactive web sites that connects the lessor with business partners
including lessees, funding sources, auctioneers and banks via the lease management software.
Each line of communication in the lease software employs secured socket
layers for complete security and is even e-commerce enabled, allowing
for secure online ACH and credit card payments.
It is common knowledge that front-end systems, such as CapitalStream's
CapitalStream - FinanceCenterTM are already leveraging the powers of
the Internet. The efficiencies that they have realized, however,
represent only the beginnings of a greater change. Still to be tapped
are the efficiencies of large data-rich back-end processes. The
web-enabling of lease management and accounting software, by companies
such as Odessa Technologies, is a step towards this
efficiency-realization. As Internet technology seeps into the back-end,
the leasing industry stands to experience a rare paradigm shift: one
where the technology drives the process rather than being driven by it.
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