This article originally appeared in FinTech Magazine
Leveraging scale, diversity and tech, DLL is customer-centered and is committed to changing how they do things to support their customers.
They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but DLL is showing ‘them’ wrong. “We are listening, even if it means we change what we do and have done for the last 50 years,” says Rafe Rosato, Chief Innovation Officer of DLL. Rooted in its history, DLL remains committed to supporting the communities in which it operates by offering financial services, expertise, manpower, in-kind contributions and more. Rafe says, “Ultimately, our mission is to first do good in the world.”
DLL has kicked off a new journey in which they leverage diversity and the power of scale and partnerships to help them in becoming a value-led, customer-centered business that will fuel growth— naturally.
Forwarding the Strength of Community
Rafe shares the DLL story: “DLL is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rabobank Group, which is a Dutch cooperative bank. The bank itself has been in existence for over a hundred years. DLL was launched in 1969 by five individuals who worked for Rabobank. They started up this little Dutch equipment finance company when a client asked if Rabobank would be interested in financing equipment and providing a lease product.”
Rabobank itself emerged from the Raiffeisenbank and the Boerenleenbank, two banks modelled on an agricultural credit cooperative established by rural German mayor Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen (1818-1888). Raiffeisen believed that credit cooperatives could structurally improve the daily lives of rural people and bring an end to suffocating usurious practices.
Rafe continued, “The Raiffeisenbank was an early version of what we would refer to as a credit union now. And essentially, those two organizations came together with the belief that the community was important and the idea that financing the community was critical to its strength. So, therefore, those who were successful in the community pooled their money to promote and support others so that they could likewise be successful.
“The way we translate that today is that there are many businesses in the world that are looking to acquire equipment and technology that generates value in a community – whether it's in goods and services, whether it's employment, or whether it's just general economic activity. At DLL, we are partnering for a better world by providing financial services to communities so that businesses can get the goods and services that they need in order to create value for their customers. And ultimately, every day are we ask ourselves, what have we done to further the strength of our communities?”
The Power of Scale for a Better Customer Experience
“The power of DLL is our global scale, the diverse portfolio of the industries we operate in and our ability to provide scalable solutions and a seamless experience around the world,” says Daniela Weitmann, Head of Digital Transformation at DLL. She continues, “That global scale is one of the key differentiators for our success today. It's a particularly critical advantage as we fuel our digital transformation.
“There are some things that we are focusing on in our digital transformation. The first one is we are creating products that are informed by what our customers want and need. This is critical. Our second area of focus is to move away from letting technology dictate what type of experience we provide to our customers. Rather, we are putting the customer at the centre of everything we do and allowing their input to influence and shape our digital solutions.
“We know that our customers want a premium, consistent, and seamless experience. We know that our customers want self-service and through multiple channels, such as mobile chat, email, phone and more. Therefore, we are leveraging the knowledge and experience that we have to deliver amazing customer experiences at a global scale.”
Rafe further explains the imperativeness of understanding customer needs. “Part of our value proposition is this concept of co-creation and the idea of authenticity. We don't have all the answers, but we have a willingness to find answers. When we talk about our customers, we really don't think of them in that traditional supplier/customer relationship sense. What we're looking to do is really create a partnership with equal contributions to the outcome for each party. It would be easy to say we provide payment solutions for our partners, but our partners need many more things than just some way to pay. They need new ideas. They need new access to markets. They need training. They need tools. They need new products and services.”
DLL aims to bring more customer-friendly options, such as utilization products, and scale it across DLL’s long list of partners and geographies. Rafe says, “It is very important and vital to our success that we really understand the customer needs. And then leveraging those needs to identify commonalities across different channels, geographies and industries, and create scale. How does one industry benefit from the learnings of another and vice versa?
“Our global reach is putting us in a position to simplify the equation. It creates easier access. And if we can create easier access through these types of partnerships, it'll poise us to really accelerate our growth, and more importantly, the growth of our partners.”
Customers: The Epicenter of Digital Transformation
Across the spectrum, customers are calling the shots. Having worked for big-name brands for many years, Daniela would know. She shares, “In the retail world, we say that in the end, the consumer decides, not your boss. It's not the strategies that you put on paper. It’s the consumer that will decide how to access your brand. There are three main aspects that are driving consumer choice, and if we make a parallel, to our world, those three main drivers are access, experience and price.”
Looking at the consumer trends that are making their way into the 'business to business’ world, Daniela says, “The first one is that consumers want whatever, whenever. Therefore, it’s critical for us to provide that self-service capability. The second lesson is that consumer patterns are shifting based on the experience and price parameters that we considered sacred in the past.
“It's experience versus transaction, it's premium versus value. At any point of the customer journey, relevant experiences will provide a lifelong relationship with your customers, not a transactional one.”
DLL has been advancing on their digital transformation journey for many years, “I like to believe that bringing in diverse leaders is a testament to how serious DLL is about our digital transformation,” says Daniela. She continues, “The main shifts we are experiencing in digital transformation is that we are now starting with the customer at the center and working ourselves backwards to see what the shifts are that will enable our business growth and the growth of our partners going forward, knowing what the end-user wants and needs.