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10th May 2012

Majority of IT vendors now say provision of finance is core to their sales

56% of IT vendors say that the provision of finance is now core to their sales offering, reveals research by Syscap the leading IT finance provider.

Syscap's survey shows that another 33% of IT vendors say they now offer finance whenever their potential customer raises an objection over the cost of the IT that they are considering.

Syscap explains that the last four years has seen a growing consensus amongst IT vendors that offering customers the finance to make IT purchases is essential to completing sales.

Explains Philip White, CEO, of Syscap: "Businesses want to invest in IT but the economic uncertainty means they are reluctant to reduce their own cash balances in order to fund that investment."

"Many businesses are finding it hard to get bank funding to make that IT investment so either the IT vendor helps arrange finance or the sale will not take place."

"IT vendors tell us that lack of available funds amongst their customer base is the single biggest impediment to making a sale and that makes the ability to offer their customers finance a real competitive advantage."

Syscap says that it has invested heavily to ensure that IT vendors who use Syscap to provide finance to their customers can do so in as rapid and as seamless a manner as possible.

This includes their online finance quoting system with a unique online "decision in principle" feature which allows IT resellers to identify their customer's finance status at a glance.

Syscap's research shows that 58% of IT vendors consider a mechanism that will quote them the price of finance for their customers to be the most valuable feature of an online vendor finance system wereas 14% said that providing a credit opinion on a customer would be the most valuable feature.

Data out last year from the FLA (Finance & Leasing Association) shows that the amount of money provided for vendor finance jumped 24% in the six months to end of July 2011 to £2.6billion up from £2.1billion in the same period last year.

Syscap says that data also shows that the use of vendor finance is spreading across sectors outside of IT such as machinery and commercial vehicles.