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 16 February 2012 |
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by Brian Rogerson
The Asset Works plans global growth with new-formed partnerships
The Asset Works (TAW), the international provider of asset management and verification services for the leasing industry, has extended its global influence with three significant points of growth this month (February).
In a partnership arrangement with Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), the company will integrate JLL’s asset valuation, recovery and disposal capabilities into its service offering.
TAW has recently launched its assetaware™ and assetaware+™ services which enables clients to securely and cost-effectively obtain imagery, current location, usage, condition and identification data of their assets whenever desired.
Lindsay Town, TAW’s chairman, explained that the tie-up will allow lessors to combine world-class collateral appraisal and re-marketing services within a common platform. He added: “JLL is rightly regarded as a leading company in the field of professional services to lessors – and the quality of services that it brings to the assetaware environment will add significant value and deliver enhanced efficiency to our client base.”
Huge improvements
JLL merged with King Sturge in 2011 and currently operates in 1,000 locations across 70 countries and employs around 40,000 people. Peter Singleton, lead director of Machinery and Business Assets at JLL added: “The control, flexibility and, above all, simplicity of TAW’s system will drive huge improvements in the processing of vital information and the delivery of our services to clients.”
At the same time TAW has announced a partnership with NetSol Technologies Europe, the wholly-owned subsidiary of NetSol Technologies Inc. the global IT vendor, to provide integrated asset verification and visibility services to its existing and future client base.
NetSol reported that it was the first leasing IT solutions provider to partner with TAW. “Integrating the data collected by the assetaware and assetaware+ solutions into NetSol’s lease management systems can deliver significant benefits to NetSol’s clients.”
Meanwhile, in the UK, Syscap has appointed TAW to implement asset verification services and management solutions for its education and local government clients.
Syscap is a 21-year old provider of finance to the professions, commercial corporates and public sector. The Asset Works will implement asset verification services and management solutions for Syscap’s education and local government clients. As a consequence, Syscap and its clients will effectively be able to track and monitor the equipment throughout their lifecycle.
Less vulnerable
Phillip White, Syscap’s chief executive explained that the company provides funding for ICT investment across many areas of the public sector - and offering schools and local government a straightforward way to spread the cost of technology investment and future upgrades, making schools less vulnerable to fluctuations in funding.
A recent Ofsted (the official body for inspecting schools in the UK) report noted that “many schools have not evaluated IT investments and that there was a low awareness of the consequences of the depreciation of their IT investments”.
White commented: “The technology provided by The Asset Works will allow Syscap and our clients to actually track and monitor equipment and its exact geographical location. Having a better grasp on ICT equipment will help our clients save money and ensure that their IT equipment is fully up to date. In these difficult economic times it is crucial that we look for ways to provide our clients with efficient money-saving devices.”
Having established a firm platform for growth – what next?
Mike Chowney, director and co-founder at TAW told Asset Finance International: “We intend to continue forming new relationships with selected asset financiers as well as complementary service providers. We are not restricting ourselves to any one asset finance sector nor any one geographic market.”
“For example, our assetaware+ product is generating strong interest in the automotive market. The relatively quick asset turnaround with high volumes makes this particular market very difficult to tackle traditionally. Our electronic RFID smartphone-based system allows us to deliver vastly more verifications at a fraction of the cost. We’re expecting to see volumes in this arena grow significantly across the year.”
He added: “We will continue to develop the scale and reach of our offering in conjunction with appropriate partners to deliver our overriding goal of having a true ‘cradle to grave’ approach. Helping with the transmission of data at the lease inception right through to verifying that an item has arrived at a remarketing agent at the end of its lease life, including support where transactions have fallen into default.”
What international plans for The Asset Works?
Chowney said: “We already operate across Europe and Asia and are just completing two pretty sizeable projects in Hungary and the Czech Republic.”
“Our clients are multinational and as such we have to be ready and willing to deploy our technology wherever our clients operate and we are currently negotiating several new non-UK based transactions.”
“One of the key enablers for our international expansion is our ability to roll out our services pretty much wherever you can use a mobile phone. It really is as easy for us to operate in Thailand as Tottenham!”
The management is ambitious for growth
“Our aim,” Chowney said, “is to position ourselves at the operational centre of the asset finance industry – to be seen as innovative, reliable and adding demonstrable value at an acceptable cost.”
“Our services become relevant at many stages of the life of an asset-finance transaction as well as providing the building block for an enhanced data source to respond to regulatory and operational requirements. From inception to ultimate disposal, we support lessor processes and risk management in various guises, drawing where needed on acknowledged expertise to deliver a seamless service.”
He concluded: “we’re small enough to be fleet of foot. We can react to client requirement with the speed that sometimes larger organisations find difficult. However, as evidenced by the Jones Lang LaSalle announcement we are creating an environment where we are big enough to cope with most eventualities.”
For the latest leasing and financing news, please visit the Asset Finance International website.