LeaseWorks®, a leading provider of cloud-based solutions and services, hosted the first edition of its LeaseWorks Innovation Summit in conjunction with this year’s Airline Economics Week.
The Summit brought together thought leaders and senior executives from across the aviation finance community to discuss the industry’s latest innovations and best practices that help aircraft lessors advance their digital transformation initiatives.
“At the LeaseWorks Innovation Summit, industry experts covered a breadth of topics that helped attendees gain insights into how technology can help aircraft lessors optimize their internal and customer-facing digital initiatives,” says Haseem Vazhayil, LeaseWorks’ Chief Executive Officer. “We are grateful for the incredible turnout and active engagement by all the attendees, speakers, and contributors, and for making it such a resounding success.”
Through highly informative keynote addresses, interactive sessions, and lively networking breaks, the Summit offered exclusive insights into a broad range of topics – from establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) that benchmark operations to structuring IT organizations that support C-suite business strategies. These insights were distilled into actionable goals and translated into real-world tactics. Here is a glimpse at some of the key takeaways:
Innovation Is In Our DNA
Haseem Vazhayil, LeaseWorks’ Chief Executive Officer, opened the Summit with a look-back at the company’s decade-long journey, exhibiting how innovation was the core of the company’s DNA and the need for rapid information sharing and digital engagement was the driving force for the entire team. With the growing prominence of artificial intelligence (AI), Vazhayil also noted that the company was making significant investments in building specialized Salesforce-powered AI apps focused on zero data retention, which would allow customers to have full control over how their private and confidential data was used and shared.
Opportunity Exists For Innovation To Meet Aviation Business Needs
Aviation Capital Group’s Chief Information Officer Greg Meyer set the scene of the increased pressures on lessors to adopt the latest digital solutions by detailing the ingredients of a successful IT strategy that effectively tackled everyday challenges faced by the leasing platforms.
With a primary focus on cyber security, Meyer provided a detailed seven-layer approach toward creating a secure technology environment. He expressed his concern at how technologically under-served the aircraft leasing industry was, optimistically opining that the opportunity exists for innovation to meet the business needs. He also pointed out the industry needed easy-to-use solutions with an effective user interface and a focus on mobile usability.
Show People Benefit As Fast As Possible To Incentivize Adoption; Accuracy Builds Trust
A fireside chat with Splitrock Aviation’s Andy Mansell delved into the latest trends, emphasizing the value of having the right software to support day-to-day operations and the importance of leveraging critical patterns in data. Mansell spoke about the challenges of integrating new technologies into an existing organization and the essential role organizational champions play in showcasing the benefits and accuracy of new technologies to incentivize adoption.
Be Thoughtful About System Adoption And Business Processes
A dynamic customer panel featured perspectives from Donna Marie O’Neill, Head of Operations, Airborne Capital, Peter Wenham, Head of Digital, Novus Aviation Capital, Scott Boardman, VP Marketing Azorra, and Stephanie Sutherland, Director, Corporate Development, Willis Lease Finance Corporation, who provided a comprehensive view of user experiences and expectations.
Sutherland emphasized the importance of engaging senior management to encourage user adoption and acknowledged that it was necessary to invest considerable time and effort in system adoption and business processes. Wenham shared his views on the importance of providing customers with comprehensive and accurate documentation to ensure the software is used effectively and to its full potential. O’Neill added valuable thoughts on how peer-to-peer information sharing could speed up troubleshooting. Boardman highlighted the need to keep solutions simple, rather than using technology to create complex workarounds.
LeaseWorks Is Categorically The World’s Best CRM
Chris Rodrigues, SVP, Sales & Marketing at SMBC Aircraft Engine Leasing, offered a unique viewpoint on the evolving landscape of leasing solutions and how the LeaseWorks customizable products positively affected the Marketing team and management’s activities. Rodrigues also provided helpful insights into the importance of syncing offline and online work.
Artificial Intelligence Applications To Power The Industry
Juan Blanco, who leads LeaseWorks’ Customer Product Architecture initiatives, provided a preview of the company’s AI applications under development, and shed light on its application development strategy. He segmented AI into two broad categories: the harmless external aggregate applications that provide access to aggregated external data, such as 10K filings, fleet strategies, and similar information, and the more sensitive AI-related applications that summarize internal information around MR balances, future rent collection, and other internal data.
Don’t Provide Technology, Provide Functionality
The Summit closed with Jorg Koletzki, AerCap’s Chief Technology Officer, discussing technology trends and sharing his forward-looking outlook on the trajectory of digital transformation among lessors. Koletzki explained that growth is unavoidable and technology systems should be focused on supporting different leasing models to enable platform scaling. He contested that AI would change the world, but it would not change the fundamentals of aircraft leasing, with organizations needing to identify the exact areas and tasks that AI can support, such as data analysis, automating testing, and documentation reviews. Koletzki also provided insights into how IT organizations in five different lessor business models should align to support their business strategies.
What’s Next For LeaseWorks
The LeaseWorks team provided an overview of the company’s investments in extending the digital engagement of end-customers and implementing enhancements to the Aeris ASSETTM and Aeris MATCHTM products. They singled out customers, the industry, and economic trends as the key influencers for product development, emphasizing that LeaseWorks prioritized product innovation, user experience and productivity improvements, and bringing new products to market. Features around AI, the reduction in the number of clicks to get to information quickly, and advanced features around future engine shop visit estimation, and the re-imagination of productivity wizards generated the most interest among the audience.
“The Summit delivered on our goal to provide a vibrant and collaborative atmosphere to explore cutting-edge technologies and groundbreaking innovations that can help lessors bridge gaps in their digital transformation initiatives,” states Vazhayil.
To receive information on next year’s summit and related product upgraded events, please email: nicholas.dsilva@lease-works.com.
About LeaseWorks
LeaseWorks® provides cloud-based products and services to the aviation leasing community, with solutions for both lessors and airlines. Aeris MATCH™ helps lessors more quickly and effectively deploy their aviation assets with airlines around the globe. Aeris ASSET™ allows both lessors and airlines to manage the intricate details of aviation leases. These are the first two of a suite of products that will constitute a full-life-cycle portal for managing leased aviation assets. www.lease-works.com
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