HITACHI Capital Vehicle Solutions has partnered with the Small Fleet Leasing Federation as one of the key funding providers.

Based in Newbury, Trowbridge and Leicester, and specialising in business contract hire and personal contract hire with and without maintenance, Hitachi Capital has been growing its presence in the broker sector.

It now has 48 brokers that it supports and is actively looking for more.

Hitachi Capital sees the Federation as an ideal way to communicate and integrate further with the broker market.

As Chris Swallow, Hitachi Capital’s national sales manager – associates, explains, supporting the Federation is a demonstration of Hitachi Capital’s commitment to brokers.

Chris says: “Since joining Hitachi Capital back in February 2014, and with the introduction of new regulation later that year, we have been working closely with brokers to develop our offering.

“We recognise that brokers are masters at digital marketing, relationship management and fleet management.

“We see this division as a key growth area for our business both in the personal and business leasing sectors.

“Hitachi Capital has already made a significant investment in developing an online digital platform that will enable us to grow and become a major player in the market.

“With the addition of strong manufacturer relationships and tactical buying we believe we now have the edge in a very competitive market.”

“Our new Associate portal allows brokers to quote, propose and produce documents online. The new EDMS (Electronic Document Management System) enables our brokers to send documents to customers electronically and upload the supporting document information (such as dealer invoice, registration document and delivery note) to electronic customer files.

“This then creates an electronic work queue allowing us to quickly and efficiently process the customer order with minimal input from brokers.

“In March 2016, we will be adding additional functionality that will allow customers to sign and ‘execute the agreement’ electronically. The digital agreement will then automatically be sent back to Hitachi Capital for processing without the need for physical paperwork.

“The key benefits to our brokers are:

• Greater efficiency, improving the speed of order processing
• Faster commission and dealer payments
• User friendly platforms for brokers and customers
• Online management of order bank and customer credit facility

“The net result is a system that is intuitive to use and able to process orders quickly and accurately.

“Hitachi’s culture is all about effective, strong relationships and we have some fantastic broker partners that have supported us in the development and growth of this division.

“We are looking forward to the next 12 months and beyond, working with our partners to further increase our market share as well as looking at developing new relationships.

“It is a very exciting time to be part of such a great company that is investing so much in this division and people!”