Capital Equipment News February 2019

FINANCE

August 2017. The company is working on its insurance offering to be able to provide comprehensive, effective and tailor-made products that are set to close the gaps in the existing conventional insurance pack- ages already available in the market. Apart from widening the scope, Glas-Crommert says another area of focus will be to reorganise the back office to allow sales staff to spend less time in the office and reduce their administration duties on applications to allow them more customer facing time. “For me it’s about increasing efficiency, making sure that the sales people are afforded more time with customers,” says Glas-Crommert. Changing the landscape Glas-Crommert says captive financing is proving to be a very important part of Scania’s total offering approach. “We are talking about capital intensive goods, and financing plays a big role in helping our customers get access to the capital goods they need to steer their businesses forward,” he says. He says the finance business offers great value to Scania customers by being easy to do business with, through its speed and industry knowledge, and by working hard to develop long-term rela- tionships with customers throughout the business cycles. “Traditional financial institutions have always been satisfied with a certain level of penetration and anything beyond that would be seen as too risky. We don’t see it as risk, we see it as opportunity. Of course we always take a prudent and ethical approach to every deal, but we believe there are ways and means to get around the tradi- tional issues that have always hindered credit applications,” he says. Glas-Crommert adds that the major advantage of Scania’s captive finance is the knowledge of the product and cooper- ation between different functions that are embedded within the organisation. There are different functions within the Scania organisation, including Scania Parts, Scania Fleet Management, Scania Rental, Scania Finance and Insurance, as well as Scania Used, to mention a few, which are driven by the same values, making the company a one-stop shop for all our customers’ needs. “Dealing with a single organisation for all these needs, all the way from the product, through to finance, insurance and aftersales service, maximises uptime for the customer. I strongly believe in our common solution, which we can provide to every customer as Scania South Africa,” concludes Glas-Crommert. b

“In the past, we have predominantly offered finance and operating leases to customers, but I believe there is room to widen the scope by pursuing other products such as dealer floor plans and used vehicle trade, among others, to increase our offering to the customer. Currently 90% of Scania’s finance portfolio is finance leases, while 10% is operating leases.”

Patrik Glas-Crommert, MD of Scania Finance & Insurance Southern and East Africa

The offering of finance products by OEMs such as Scania has evolved from a pure sales support function to the pursuit of optimisation of customer lifetime value.

move is to improve our financial products to better cater for our customers’ needs,” says Glas-Crommert. New era, new focus Glas-Crommert took over the reins at Scania Finance in October last year. A Swedish nationality who has seen it all in the financial sector, his previous role was that of chief financial officer at Scania South Africa, a role he occupied for the past seven years. Prior to his South African move some seven years ago, Glas- Crommert had served in different finance management roles since 2000. Backed by his knowledge of the finance industry, Glas-Crommert is the perfect fit to orchestrate the next growth wave for Scania Finance & Insurance Southern and East Africa. As the business seeks to continue its growth trajectory, one of his immediate plans is to widen the scope. “In the past, we have predominantly offered finance and operating leases to customers, but I believe there is room to widen the scope by pursuing other prod- ucts such as dealer floor plans and used vehicle trade, among others, to increase our offering to the customer,” he says, adding that currently 90% of Scania’s

finance portfolio is finance leases, while 10% is operating leases. However, a full pallet of financing products is available. Apart from the three major products – finance leases, operating leases and instalment sales agreements – the company also offers other services such as finance leases with balloon payments, finance leases with trade-ins and buy-backs, finance leases with residual values, as well as full main- tenance leases. The services are complemented by cross-border financing and insurance. Cross-border financing currently rep- resents 25% of the portfolio, and the rest sits in South Africa. “Most of the portfolio currently sits in South Africa, but we have been quite successful in Tanzania, specifically on the used truck side of the business. We also have strong penetration levels in Namibia and Botswana, although the markets are still fairly small,” explains Glas-Crommert. Scania Finance & Insurance Southern and East Africa is also the first OEM (captive) insurance service in the local market to be certified as an insurance broker after being granted its brokerage licence by the Financial Services Board in

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