Volkswagen Pon Financial Services says it has seen faster process times along with other benefits since going live with Miles, the hybrid contract management system for fleet and retail from Sofico.

Volkswagen Pon Financial Services is a joint venture between Volkswagen Financial Services and Pon Holdings in the Netherlands, and currently manages around 45,000 active retail finance contracts, both private customers and SMEs, and 75,000 fleet contracts.

The business wanted to introduce process efficiencies and improve authorisation and approval times for its end users. At the same time, it also wanted to enhance the customer experience and improve its own customer satisfaction scores.

It turned to Sofico and its Miles system on the strength of a long-standing business relationship and began an implementation project, code-named ‘FIRE’ (Finance Insurance Retail), initially for the retail portfolio of its third party, white label proposition, Autocash.

The system went live at the end of November 2015. Due to its success, it now plans to roll out the Miles system to its other brands and their dealers, in conjunction with a new insurance product, by the end of September.

Marc Overgoor, director of operations at Volkswagen Pon Financial Services, said: “Miles has enabled us to do more business with the same number of people, and we now have the Miles system fully integrated with no need for manual intervention whatsoever.

“This has improved our authorisation and approval times. We now have straight-through processing with no or little manual intervention required.

“The automation of the credit scoring process through Miles means we can go back to the intermediary, such as the broker, far more quickly and close more deals as a result. All applications are handled completely digitally with automated and authorized workflows.

“The initial phase of the project has been a resounding success. We already believed in Miles as a fleet product but now we have proved categorically that it can be a perfect retail product as well.”

Ghent, Belgium-based Sofico, which provides software and consultancy to the automotive finance, leasing, fleet and mobility industry, first launched Miles 11 years ago and reached a new milestone recently with the completion of its 30th Miles implementation project.

In that time, Miles’ scope has broadened from leasing and fleet management to include retail and mobility management in response to a changing corporate automotive market.

The latest developments make Miles the first true hybrid fleet/retail contract management software system capable of meeting the needs of captive and independent leasing companies, in a market where the traditional boundaries between retail and fleet are increasingly blurring.

Gémar Hompes, Sofico managing director, said: “Following the success of the project in the Netherlands, we fully expect the roll out of Miles across other parts of the international organisation with the ultimate harmonisation of systems on both the retail and fleet sides of the Volkswagen business.”

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