ENX Magazine Business Profile

In a world where the old is thrown out to make room for the new, GreatAmerica Leasing Corporation breaks the mold by keeping their customers for a lifetime. As the largest privately owned and independent US national commercial equipment finance company, they are dedicated to helping their manufacturers, vendors, and dealers be more successful.

More than a provider of asset financing, GreatAmerica has become a true partner to the office equipment industry. As they near their 20 year anniversary, over 335 employees provide innovative solutions

through financing and business services in all fifty states and some U.S. Territories.

GreatAmerica is deeply committed to successfully serving the office equipment industry. You find its staff members providing educational presentations at various industry events and contributing many articles to the industry publications.

Jennie Fisher - Sr. VP & GM Office Equipment Group

“GreatAmerica Leasing Corporation is dedicated to being a leader in helping our customers be more successful. We have committed resources specifically to help our industry partners with the delivery and execution of Managed Print Services (MPS),” said Jennie Fisher, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Office Equipment Group at GreatAmerica. “At our core, GreatAmerica is the leading provider of financing and contract administration for providers of office equipment and Managed Print Services. We offer customized program agreements to meet the needs of each reseller’s MPS program. We have designed lease and rental contracts and documents that fit your specific needs including accommodating legacy fleets and differentiating between financed and customer-owned devices.”

Once an MPS contract is established, GreatAmerica provides a variety of invoice configurations to meet both end user and dealer needs such as departmental breakouts, rolled up assets, and other features. They also have very simple and concise documentation to aid in the continuing changes within a contract such as adding or swapping equipment. GreatAmerica also has a specialized Billing Solutions Group dedicated to bundled billing and MPS contract execution.

The GreatAmerica billing system integrates with the major ERP systems allowing for easy movement of meter reads via auto-upload and pass-through payments. They can also auto post the pass-through billing back into the reseller’s system. Their industry leading website, Info-Zone.com™, provides resellers 24/7 access to their contract information, accounts receivable and additional tools. This is a password protected portal with access controlled by the reseller. Once an MPS contract books, customers can utilize meter uploads via this website. The GreatAmerica help desk and dedicated support teams constantly provide a high level of customer and technical assistance, ongoing training, sales support and customized marketing materials.

“In addition to our financial solutions, GreatAmerica has also brought value-added tools to our customers to enable them to help grow their business,” said Fisher. “By making investments in these tools and solutions, they are able to offer mission-critical infrastructure at a reduced cost with or without upfront investment from the office equipment dealer.”

GreatAmerica has extended their commitment to be a true partner with their dealer-clients. By continually listening to the needs of the dealer, GreatAmerica continues to create and share systems and programs that will nurture their goal of creating customers for life. The Customers for Life™ approach to leasing defines the customer as the office equipment dealer or reseller, not the end user. This approach is distinctly different from other leasing companies and guides the core business practices of providing the highest levels of customer care to help their dealers be more successful.

Current GreatAmerica MPS and business related offerings include the following:

FleetView® provides dealers with remote monitoring software without having to make a capital investment in their own system or support. FleetView interfaces with both FMAudit and PrintFleet operating platforms. GreatAmerica offers FleetView as a simple fee structure that is not tied to leasing or other business commitments.

Network Operating Center for Collabrance product

InTune® is a survey tool to gauge customer satisfaction. Each year GreatAmerica surveys their resellers and dealers to determine their performance. GreatAmerica saw such a benefit to their organization from customer feedback that they decided to use a third-party market research company to offer a survey tool to the dealers. GreatAmerica subsidized the cost to develop the survey. As a result the reseller has no start up costs and only pays a monthly fee that is equal to approximately 10% of what they would pay to administer the survey on their own. Administered on a monthly basis, InTune provides monthly feedback on sales of new equipment placements and service satisfaction.

PathSharesSM HR Services provides additional hiring and training solutions for resellers. These human resources training webinars offer the reseller community assessment tools and hiring best practices. GreatAmerica completed and rolled out to the MPS community, via training sessions, the MPS Sales Success Profile. It is supported by a study conducted by Sally Brause, Director, Human Resources Consulting, and includes assessment tools, interviews, and field data work with MPS sales personnel and managers. The study informs the key attributes necessary for MPS sales compared to traditional transactional focused sales and the key coaching necessary for successful management.

The MPS Navigator business planning session takes the reseller’s executive team through the process to plan, implement and grow their MPS business. The content for this workshop was developed from interviews with MPS practicing dealers. Facilitated by Steven Power, the executive team is taken through:

• a situational analysis,
• business plan guide, including a revenue planning tool,
• development of a business model and operational structure,
• selection of MPS infrastructure resources, including review and comparison of the turnkey programs,
• branding and marketing strategies, including a turnkey end-user marketing packet,
• sales force engagement strategy and compensation,
• compensation planning spreadsheet tool,
• go-to-market strategy.

Collabrance™ LLC provides office equipment owners the tools to create their own end-user Information Technology (IT) support services for their customer's environment. This turnkey solution allows service providers to present a comprehensive, custom branded IT service package to improve customer satisfaction and increase recurring revenue. GreatAmerica has invested considerable time and capital to build a best-in-class solution enabling providers to realize immediate revenues.

GreatAmerica has earned the right to be the finance company of choice for many of the leading MPS independent dealers and national providers in the United States including SYNNEX PrintSOLV, Xerox PagePack, Oki Total Managed Print, Supplies Network (Carbon6 and PrintCube), S.P. Richard's PrintSmart, Toshiba and Kyocera.

GreatAmerica continues to distinguish itself through innovations such as turn-key monitoring systems and new surveying programs. Their superior customer service is shown through their ongoing dealer education, consistent quality, and 24/7 access to needed information. GreatAmerica's business practices prove they are committed to being a leader in partnering with their customers to execute fair and ethical leasing for Managed Print Services.

GreatAmerica Leasing Corporation
625 1st St SE
Cedar Rapids, IA 52401
800-234-8787
www.greatamerica.com
communications@greatamerica.com