Please, Please, Lease, …..Let Me, Get What I Want……

Please, Please, Lease, …..Let Me, Get What I Want……

Yes I know Morrisey and Johnny Marr are probably disgusted at my casual use of their lyrics in my latest blog, but I couldn’t think of a better way to describe it !  So first let me qualify that I want to talk about something that is considered a bit of a dirty phrase in our industry because of miss-selling by a minority of less scrupulous companies and that phrase is lease finance, but please bear with me.

We know that both public and private sector organisations are facing tightened budgets this year and with banks hardly falling over themselves to meet or exceed their “Merlin” targets for lending to SME’s how are you going to fund that refresh of ICT equipment.  It may surprise you to know that in the 12 months to June 2011, UK asset finance providers funded almost £1.1bn of investment in ICT kit and services now when you take into account that UK ICT spend was worth £13bn in 2010 it doesn’t take a genius to work out that finance is a an expanding and flexible way of funding that ICT capital expenditure.

We have in the past and continue to work with companies like BNP Paribas Leasing Technology Services who specialise in the IT and telecoms sector and found they have been extremely helpful in funding projects that include the whole wraparound of technology (Hardware & Software !), training and maintenance.  They have been great at helping us engage directly with the company and meet those funding issues head on.  In fact through financing vehicles such as an Operating Lease organisations can continue to benefit from new ICT systems without having to use capital expenditure to fund this.  We have found it also helps with budgeting and reduction of net debt, freeing cash into the organisation to focus on other core activities.

Education has been particularly badly hit when you consider prior to the spending cuts more than 60% of their ICT budget was spent on maintenance and service level agreements.  Obviously many are now actively considering leasing or rental schemes with ourselves and even considering parental contribution programmes that a good partner company (like mine!) can help with.

So whilst leasing has been traditionally the reserve of business we feel that is going to change with more public sector customers considering this as a viable option in this tough financial climate .

So give us a call today to find out how we can help you fund your next ICT project.