6 common mistakes made by leasing business managers

Date: 2018.05.10

Author Agneta Venckute

 

When the Finnish giant, the world renowned company NOKIA collapsed, there were a lot of questions. How can a top company go downhill so suddenly? The answer is simple: inability to adapt to the changing market. As they say, it is good to learn from mistakes, but much better to learn from someone else’s.

I analyzed very common mistakes made by leasing business managers. Let’s review them:

1. Not using business reports

Accounting is a tool that not only shows you the bank balance but is also a mechanism for showing which parts of your strategy are working and which are not. Using business reports and financial data can show where the key business issues are, for example clients who are in debt (perhaps a client is not happy with the quality and that’s why he postponed the payment?).

2. Focusing on short-term goals only

When the organization is busy with projects and handling customers’ requests, the workload keeps everybody busy and obviously there’s no time left for anything else but meeting deadlines. During such times, it is easy to get caught up and only focus on the short-term goals, forgetting the long-term business strategy. Consider that accounting is one of the company’s financial measures that helps to not only track today’s numbers but can also help forecast future growth and identify any financial risk arising from current actions and decisions or opportunities for company growth. Analysing the data is crucial for making long-term strategic goals.

3. Ignoring technological changes

Marketing techniques and technology are both changing very fast and one delay in adapting can cost you nothing else but to become outdated and forgotten by your customers.
To keep up with changing market situations, it is important for a business to regularly update and adapt to newer technology. Ongoing market research should help to understand changing trends and customer needs. For example, newspapers could have disappeared in this internet age if not for smart e-portal strategy, which has helped them to retain their position.

4. Not Backing Up!

The only thing you can expect in business is the unexpected. You come to work, turn on your current software and get to see a black screen with strange symbols. Your Excel calculations and customer portfolio information are long gone. Why take a risk? Backing up information isn’t difficult these days, you can also keep it in the cloud. Just do it on a regular basis, ok?

5. Ceasing to Improve

Whenever you’re caught up in daily tasks and feel that you’re spending no time on improving, remember the NOKIA case: inability to adapt to changes can kill the company. Lack of improvement does the same. As an organization leader, you should always be looking for ways to improve your products and services; review the internal processes of service delivery in an effort to identify improvement opportunities.

6. Not spending enough time learning software capabilities

First of all, let me stress the importance of learning about your software’s capabilities. It may sound like common sense, but many leasing managers fail at this task. Having leasing software installed is only the first step, although after you start using it you may miss most of its advantages. For leasing businesses management to not spend time on properly learning and using the leasing software they have purchased increases the probability of mistakes, simply missing out on some valuable functions and incomplete information that can negatively affect their business.

Which mistakes did you recognise yourself making?

When seeking to improve your business results and work efficiency, it’s smart to look at other companies’ good and bad experiences and learn from them. However, not all of the problems have simple solutions, and at times the only way to solve challenges is by coming up with a new strategy, new focus, hiring a new management or getting a software solution.