Toyota Industries Commercial Finance (TICF) proudly announces the 2024 Partners in Excellence Program winners. This prestigious award recognizes the top Toyota Material Handling and Hino Trucks dealers, 12 from each brand, who have demonstrated outstanding performance in key areas.

The Partners in Excellence Program acknowledges top-performing dealers based on their dedication to customer satisfaction, commitment to providing high-quality financing solutions, and overall customer support. These dealers have gone above and beyond in ensuring their customers receive financing solutions that meet their needs and support their business growth.

The winners will be honored with an exclusive reward trip to The Resort at Pelican Hill in Newport Beach, California in October.

Toyota Industries Commercial Finance is excited to announce the 2025 Partners of Excellence program, hosted at The Resort at Pelican Hill in Newport Beach CA, a five-star, five-diamond luxury destination.

In the spirit of One Toyota, we created an incentive program and award trip bringing together both Hino and Toyota dealers and our OEM partners at Hino and TMH.

This year’s Partners of Excellence program runs from April 1, 2024 – March 31, 2025. The trip for winners (and a guest) will take place in September 2025 at Pelican Hill Resort.

The top dealers (for Hino and Toyota each) based on the program parameters (outlined in the program flyer) will earn the distinctive Partners of Excellence Award and trip. Winners will be announced in early May. Should you have any questions regarding the program – your TICF Regional Sales Manager is available to assist.

Any dealer knows that making informed, mutually beneficial decisions quickly is critical to driving business success. That’s where TICF’s Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) department strives to be an ally, with financial insights and strategic guidance that help multiple internal and external stakeholders thrive.

The team, comprised of five full-time associates and a summer intern, oversees multi-layered functions, explains Howard Lee, Senior Manager of the Finance and Pricing department at TICF.

The Pricing and Program side, headed by Nikolai Carroll, focuses on providing the best possible experience for dealers and their customers. The team develops new programs and establishes competitive rates through closely observing trends in the market and monitoring their competitors’ moves. In addition they provide financial analytics to the executive team to inform decisions on TICF’s direction and share financial metrics for each dealer with the Regional Sales Managers (RSMs) so they can find areas of opportunity as they help them reach their goals.

The team also is heavily involved in the budgeting and forecasting process for the organization, which entails collaborating closely with various departments to gather data, analyze trends, and project financial results.

FP&A works closely with the sales department to gain insight gleaned from the close relationship they have with dealers. Sales is an integral part of the monthly pricing committee meeting FP&A hosts internally with executive management and key stakeholders to discuss potential rate changes and impact. “They have their finger on the pulse of the market so we work hand in hand with them each month to make sure we deliver rates that reflect market demand, competitive positioning, and profitability targets,” Carroll says.

When introducing new products, FP&A and Sales collaborate to set initial pricing that will attract customers while ensuring profitability. And they jointly develop and evaluate promotional programs and discounts to understand the financial implications and ensure they drive desired sales behavior without eroding margins.

“Overall, the FP&A Pricing team serves as a central hub for coordinating pricing-related activities across various departments, ensuring that TICF’s pricing strategies are well-informed, financially sound, and effectively implemented to ultimately support the company’s sales and profitability goals,” says Lee.

In addition, they are able to customize product offerings based on segmentation analysis. “Because we recognize the market is very sensitive to rates right now, we are trying to get creative on how we can provide solutions to customers,” he explains. The team is always looking for more cohesive and consistent pricing to streamline rates that more accurately reflect synergies between products.

Lee stresses that while profitability is one of the department’s key metrics, it’s not the only one. “We want dealers to realize that, unlike other FP&A departments whose goal is usually to maximize profit for the company, at TICF we aim to maximize the value chain of all Toyota companies, including Toyota Material Handling and the dealers. That means we take a more holistic view of problems or programs to benefit everyone and are always considering issues from all angles, not just what’s best for TICF.”

That means there may be times when they analyze the financial impact of certain decisions or programs and recognize that while they may not contribute substantially to TICF’s profitability, they are something customers and dealers need. For example, during last year’s production shutdown, they locked the rate for customers for 12 months.

The team also is working on making the messaging and pricing for products more consistent to eliminate confusion on which type of product is best for which type of customer.

“We’re always aiming to improve our process and integrate our workflow with other systems inside the company, such as the new origination system,“ Lee says. “Our team knows that improving our processes will have a downstream positive impact on customers.”