From Left to Right: Keith Courtney, Leisha Nalls, Steve Lanahan, William Doggett, David Kriete, John Crews, and Mike Schultze

Takahiro Hirakawa, General Manager, TICO Sales Finance Office and John Crews, TICF Incoming President and CEO

From Left to Right: Hino RSMs Peter Bergin, Steve Lanahan, Shirley Pridgen, Mike Francani, Dan Kuriyama, and Michael Schultze

TICF’s annual Dealer Satisfaction Survey is designed to provide Hino dealers a vehicle through which to offer anonymous feedback and the organization valuable insights into how we measure up on dozens of metrics across the dealer experience – from perception of the responsiveness of multiple departments, down to an assessment of marketing materials and training programs.

“We really appreciate every single response we receive. The annual dealer survey is a powerful tool for TICF to truly understand from our Hino dealers what we are doing well, what we need to be doing better, and how we can help dealers grow,” says Mike Schultze, Sr. Director of Sales and Marketing.

To help us continue to focus on changes that matter most to Hino dealers, the fifth annual survey was launched in October and closed in November of last year. And, with the results tabulates, we saw a 45.8% response rate, which is higher than our 2022 survey with a 29.3% response rate. 97% of Hino dealers said they are “very satisfied” overall.

As we now enter our action-planning phase, where we as an organization develop and execute targeted initiatives for the Toyota dealer network based on this year’s feedback, we heard the four areas you want us to focus on are:

1. Training programs, materials, and offerings for dealers
2.  Retail credit flexibility and turnaround time on decisions
3. Access to the TICF executive leadership team
4. Ability to resolve individual questions or problems

Keith Courtney, Sr. Manager of Sales, shares, “The survey gives us a great guide as to what we need to work on to ensure we are meeting our dealers’ needs.  The candid and honest feedback helps push us to improve constantly.  Our ultimate goal is to create a premium experience for our dealers, but it is a journey, not a destination.”

 In the May edition of Hino Express, we will share the specific initiatives we will be working on because of your feedback and our goal of being the best financial services partner to you, our valued Hino dealers, and our mutual customers.

During the next 18 months, Project FOCUS will facilitate the replacement of our credit origination system, TC3, as well as our portfolio management and servicing platform, SAP Leasing, with a single, proven software from a leading asset management software provider.

Project FOCUS was born out of your feedback, presented in dealer surveys and one-on-one conversations. It was clear from your input that we, as your finance partner, must do better for you and our mutual customers, and we have been building towards a transformation.

FOCUS stands for Finance Opportunities for Customer & User Satisfaction. What does TICF expect to accomplish? With Project FOCUS we will:

• MAKE A FRESH START: With an implementation investment of $11 million, this two-year business transformation project deploys a future-focused cloud-based, scalable, credit origination system that includes a portfolio management and servicing platform that allows us to better respond to market demand.
• NAIL THE BASICS: This system replacement delivers the best tools needed to eliminate waste, improve efficiency, and produce error-free, standardized work.
• ELEVATE THE EXPERIENCE: This project will advance our business and allow us to deliver world-class internal and external experiences Go Beyond the Transaction.
• CREATE TRANSPARENCY: The new system will allow us to break down siloed communications with dealers and customers, and deliver transparency around the status of applications, contracts, and other requests to build trust and foster alignment.

You are going to be hearing about Project FOCUS frequently in 2024 and 2025 including the specific dealer and customer pain points this software and process change will address, as well as project updates.

The Dealer’s voice is critical to our success, and we received a tremendous response from our call for volunteers. We have a dozen representatives interested and willing to volunteer to provide the dealer perspective in Project FOCUS. We expect to introduce your dealer representatives in the next edition of The Hino Express.

Thank you for your business, partnership, patience, and ongoing support. We could not be more excited about what lies ahead.

More information about Project FOCUS can be found in previously published dealer information notices: Dec 2023, Jan 2024, Feb 2024 and The Hino Express Issue #11.

The devil is in the details, they say, and no one recognizes this more keenly than someone who oversees a project management function, like Jim Jordan, PMP, CSM. Jim is the Senior Manager of the Enterprise Project Management Office (PMO) at Toyota Industries Commercial Finance (TICF). Jim joined the company eight years ago with the mission of creating and building out the PMO function. What has resulted is a structured project management approach for enterprise projects at TICF that uses best practices in project management principles to ensure each project goes smoothly.

Qualifying projects constitute anything from a shorter-term assignment like a TC3 enhancement or a project necessary to comply with new federal regulations up to a multi-year, multi-million-dollar venture like Project FOCUS. In fact, delving into those complex operations is Jim’s favorite part of the job, especially the cross-functional nature that brings him in contact with virtually every department at TICF, in addition to other Toyota group companies. “It’s exciting to oversee all the facets of a multi-layered endeavor, in particular the collaboration with associates throughout the organization,” he says, adding that the unique nature of each implementation keeps the job fresh, posing a different opportunity every day.

Wondering how these initiatives go from concept to implementation? Jim explains that the project lifecycle begins with a request, which the PMO  evaluates on several levels. He estimates that 95% of their work has an IT component so that department is involved throughout the project lifecycle.

For a small system enhancement, a Project Manager  might dive in right away, while a larger, cross-functional project would be presented to the project steering committee for evaluation. The steering committee approves or denies the  proposal based on how it aligns with TICF’s overall business goals.

If it’s determined to be consistent with business objectives (or is an essential compliance-related activity), the request gains approval and is then slotted into the team’s backlog. Each month they review approved initiatives and prioritize them with input from the project steering committee to ensure they’re consistently launching the most impactful programs.

A project manager then oversees it  from kickoff to implementation and even after. “Once the PMO has completed a project, we hold a critique session to ensure the scope was satisfied and it’s performing as intended. We also take time to go over lessons learned so we can capture ideas for improvement,” Jim explains.

Including Jim, there are currently six project managers on the team. One is coordinating joint digital transformation program efforts with Toyota Material Handling, , and another is pursuing a backlog of other business undertakings, while four  are dedicated to Project FOCUS. This huge endeavor allows TICF and Raymond Leasing to replace their antiquated origination and servicing systems and upgrade them with a modern, streamlined version that provides enhanced self-service capabilities and automates many manual processes. In addition, when Project FOCUS comes to fruition, dealers will have their first-ever dedicated portal where they can view their customers’ profiles and financial information related to leases and loans they’ve originated through TICF.

The tight-knit team of project managers is constantly working with sales and internal business teams to stay in tune with the latest from dealers and customers. “That information then flows through our intake process and eventually the project management lifecycle so we can implement initiatives designed to benefit our dealers and customers,” Jim said.

“2024 holds great promise,” Jim says. “We are making a huge investment in dealer-centric upgrades as part of our digital transformation, and I think everyone is going to be really excited about it.”

While Jim enjoys being in the thick of invigorating work in the office, once the day is over, he heads to the outdoors, where he loves fishing, boating, cycling, and running. He also prioritizes family time, often embarking on trips in their RV.