Team-Centered Transformation

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For Mitsubishi HC Capital America, the people aspect of their recent integration always comes first

Technology and culture are coming together to sharpen the competitive edge of a new and already formidable enterprise, Mitsubishi HC Capital America. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi HC Capital Inc., formed in 2021 through the merger of Mitsubishi UFJ Lease and Finance and Hitachi Capital. The organization provides leases and loans across a variety of industries such as trucking, construction, industrial, and others, in addition to creative commercial finance products to help their customers grow.

Rob Carron

“There were two other similar Mitsubishi HC Capital-owned finance companies in North America, so a strategic decision was made to combine the three companies,” Mitsubishi HC Capital America’s EVP & Chief Information Officer, Rob Carron, told BOSS. “Our individual IT teams came together to determine, along with our functional partners, which systems and processes we should consolidate. The goal was to select the best-in-class solutions, without regard from which legacy company they originated.”

Making the newly integrated IT team feel secure, ensuring that their past contributions to the company’s success were acknowledged, and the reassurance that they would continue contributing was an essential first step. “The leaders on our team are very experienced and care very much about their newly formed groups. Across the team are people that are very open-minded about working together and delivering what is best for combined company.”

One of Carron’s biggest initial challenges was to bring the new teams together to form a cohesive group. “We needed to break down the, ‘I’m from former Company A’ mentality that may drive people to prefer processes and systems they are used to, instead of what is the best solution,” he said. “It’s all about teamwork first, then choosing the best solutions, and finally executing on the most impactful projects.”

With its transformation into a larger and more diverse financial institution, the new brand sought to communicate a broader message to the market. This expansion required substantial changes to critical back-office systems as well as updating important components to the entity to reflect its evolved identity.

In his eight-year tenure with the company, Carron has gone through a number of new business acquisitions. “Every time you do that, there's integration of systems, data and people, and it’s important to get all three right.”

When the three Mitsubishi HC Capital America businesses came together this year, a primary focus for Carron and his team was to create a combined data environment to support reporting across the integrated business. “Besides monthly reporting to close the books, a lending institution needs to consolidate reporting on important metrics such as exposure and delinquency,” he noted. For example, if a banking customer has an outstanding $5 million loan and asks the lender for more, the amount they are applying for may exceed the amount the lender is willing to lend.

“When integrating companies, there is the expected blocking-and-tackling of combining data for monthly reporting. Once that’s accomplished, then we can focus more on predictive analytics and AI-driven decision-making.”

From a more strategic standpoint, their analytics allow the company to hyper focus on customers who may be ready to upgrade or purchase equipment.

“We can guide our sales teams towards approaching these customers in the month when they tend to spend the most,” he added. “We can say, ‘Contact this company in September because we see spending going in that direction in the fall.’”

A key differentiator for players such as Mitsubishi HC Capital America is the speed of making credit decisions, combined with having the right data available and rapidly accessible. It’s the bedrock for Carron’s automation efforts.

“There's a sliding scale of market expectation on the time it should take a lender to make a credit decision. If you are faster than that expectation, you have an opportunity to earn more business.”

Mitsubishi HC Capital America’s software partner relationships have also been critical to their success. “We have a buy-versus-build mentality and have very close ties with our vendors,” Carron said, adding that their typical vendor partners are skilled in Microsoft, Salesforce, and industry-specific technology from Solifi. They use Solifi for lease accounting, inventory financing, and asset-based lending and Fizen Technology’s integration systems to assist with the Solifi platforms as well as others.

“Our lease origination systems are built in Salesforce, and we work closely with our Salesforce partners to construct our solutions,” Carron asserted. “These partners include credit bureau services, document creation software from Conga, and electronic signature vendors. The Salesforce ecosystem gives us a lot of flexibility given the number of partners we can call upon.”

Now it’s balancing priorities and making sure the most impactful projects happen first. “Integrating our core leasing platforms along with a continued focus on data is critical over the next two years, and will balance these efforts with projects needed to support our growth. It will be an exciting time!”