A Tale of Outdated Processes
Did you know that outdated processes cause damage to your business? It may seem obvious that when given the choice between a manual process and an automated process, a company would choose the most efficient solution while keeping the best interest of the company’s bottom line in mind. In the same way, if an employee could choose between a headache and a clear mind –– the answer is a no brainer. However, the answer may not appear so obvious when it comes packaged with a degree of unfamiliarity and requires embracing change or abandoning the status quo.
Let’s take business out of the equation for a second. Now think of all the appliances in your kitchen at the present moment. Once upon a time, there was a much more manual and tedious way to wash dishes or to disposes of excess food waste; which was accepted as the status quo some time ago. Today we have dishwashers, garbage disposals, and many more appliances that have changed the way we live entirely. Perhaps it doesn’t sound so groundbreaking now and maybe it’s an afterthought in the midst of day-to-day activities, but at one point, it was sheer innovation and like any innovation, it’s oftentimes met with resistance initially because it requires change upfront.
Now let’s add business back into the equation. eSignature and DocuSign were very recently adopted by just about every player in equipment finance. The ability to sign something electronically is not exactly earth-shattering. In fact, these applications have been around for a long time. Since 2003 to be exact. In other words, it took equipment finance just under twenty years to finally adopt the infrastructure to provide a way for stakeholders to sign an agreement electronically on different devices.
It is said that change is the only constant, and this is apparent in the business world. Change comes in many forms: change in customer behavior, in customer expectations, in technology, in expectations, in trends, and in industry. Likewise, people historically resist change. There are many reasons for this. Sometimes it’s fear of the unknown or departing from the status quo that has served a company so well in past decades, or it’s general discomfort, or even distrust. In the world of business, the landscape tends to move pretty fast whether you are onboard or not, whether you want change or not, whether you feel comfortable or not. For example, consider how quickly the whole world had to adapt at the onset of global shutdowns and a worldwide pandemic. Businesses scrambled to adopt new technology infrastructure to adapt to the remote landscape and create a new meaning for ‘business as usual’. This alone proves that we are capable and resilient; but, the process of change doesn’t have to be so reactive or painful.
Within the secondary market of equipment finance, many syndicators are still to this day reliant on manual processes despite industry efforts to digitize and modernize traditional processes that are riddled with complexities. These outdated processes are impeding progress and efficiency for dealmakers operating in the 21st century. As the syndication market continues to grow more competitive and more complex, it demands a technologically advanced infrastructure to meet growing demand for efficiency in syndicated lending. Dealmakers must ask themselves if their current business models are sustainable: can we afford to continue operating the same way we were three decades ago in 2022?
Other industries have transformed because of their adoption of promising new technologies while syndicated lending is being left in the dust, still operating with many pitfalls and error-prone operation models. There’s an old saying that goes ‘better the devil you know than the devil you don't know’ otherwise meaning, it’s better to deal with a difficult situation you know, the one that’s in front on you, rather than one that you don’t know. The window of opportunity to adapt will only hold for so long. You can’t afford to wait to syndicate smarter! Once you miss it, the market will continue to evolve making it very difficult to compete operating with outdated processes.
There is a better way to syndicate. Discover how Syndifi is making dealmakers lives easier and syndicated lending simpler. Contact Alistair Canal at [email protected] to get started today!