Customization

As a leasing system, the LeaseWave® lease management software system was built on a simple but sound philosophy, one that differentiates it from competing products:

A business should not be molded around the limitations of a software product. The software should be molded around the exact requirements of each business, especially if they are unique.

The leasing market today is saturated with software vendors offering standard “cookie-cutter” products. Their business model is common for product-oriented software companies: they initially invest in developing a product. They then recoup this investment over a critical number of sales. Once this critical number is passed, they begin to see returns on their investment. All their customers use the same product (or combinations of modules). No customer is treated uniquely; i.e. no customer has a version of the product that is uniquely built for them. In the exceptional cases where there is a unique version, the customer is “stuck” with that version and cannot take advantage of any ongoing upgrades made to the general product. To the customer then, this model is essentially no different than buying an “out of the box” software package from a retail outlet.

This one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter approach of most leasing systems is attributed to two basic causes:

1. Most systems were built as “cookie-cutter” products for business models that rely on selling the exact same product to everyone. Customization would create version control problems with different customers using different versions.

2. Most systems are a legacy of their old origins and were not built specifically to be customized; their technologies do not lend themselves to ease in customization.

The LeaseWave® lease management software system consists of a core engine that drives all its installations. All customers are installed with the same core. Any changes made to the system and any version upgrades are distributed through the core. While the core system remains the same for every customer, the data capture, user interface requirements and processes are manipulated from customer to customer without running into version control issues. It is almost the equivalent of customizable web pages that react with different interfaces based on who the individual user might be, making the LeaseWave® system a simple, yet sophisticated, leasing system.

Of course, updating an Internet-based product is the equivalent of updating only the relevant “pages” and not having to recompile tens of thousands of lines of code. This is similar to any web-site, such as CNN’s, where pages of information get updated, in this case on an ongoing basis, without affecting the underlying core engine that runs the site. The LeaseWave® lease management system is based on a core leasing system engine that is the same on each implementation but has customized interfaces for every customer. This is a truly different design than the “cookie-cutter” approach that limits competing systems; mainly due to technological origins from the 70’s and 80’s, they are limited by their own legacy designs.

Note: Customization is an option available to all users installing Odessa’s leasing systems and is determined through consultation, though not everyone may need it.

Built by software vendors more than 10 (and sometimes even 15-20) years ago, most “out of the box” solutions were built using outdated technology. While lease accounting practices may not have changed in those years, software technology certainly has, very significantly.

The competitiveness and maturity of the leasing environment has seen tremendous changes as well. As the leasing industry continues to get more sophisticated, lessors are increasingly challenged to go beyond the calls of traditional leasing. Lease-based financing is fast becoming just one of the many different services that a lessor must render to stay competitive. Leasing companies have to constantly find ways to re-invent themselves to differentiate themselves from their competitors; certainly, their underlying leasing systems must provide them with a dynamic platform to do just that.

The LeaseWave® lease management system′s technology allows it to be versatile. The system is designed so that it can be easily customized to meet the unique requirements of every customer.

Leasing software has to be versatile enough to change with the changing needs and challenges faced by today’s lessors. It has to allow them to take advantage of the unique qualities that differentiate them from their competitors. A system built ten years ago was not built with today’s realities in mind.