FEB-MARCH 2025AUTOTECHOUTLOOK.COM9Automotive finance companies, with significant investments in monolithic mainframe systems, are struggling to respond to growing customer demand for enhanced digital experiences. A dearth of effective tools in overhauling business process systems further impedes the ability to align their systems with rapidly evolving marketplace and regulatory mandates. With more than 27 years of experience in enabling business transformation, Alfa presents its business process management system, Alfa Systems, which is a one-stop shop for all the IT needs of the auto finance companies. Alfa Systems allows companies to replace their existing legacy systems to achieve operational agility, lower opex, and meet regulatory requirements while being able to respond to market developments quickly.Built on service-oriented architecture (SOA), in Java, using agile development methodologies, Alfa Systems provides auto finance companies advanced workflow systems that enable high levels of business process automation and implement the change initiatives to update the processes. The platform also allows business processes to be easily configured within the application to track user activity, communication, and customer interaction. Migration from legacy IT to new responsive systems thus becomes easy with Alfa. Alfa Systems' multithreading technology executes multiple inexpensive nodes, running on commodity hardware, which deliver the performance of the monolithic hardware, but at reduced cost. The comprehensive functionality encompassing digitalization, customer services, and better analytics built into the platform allows customers to remain competitive in the market. The platform also comes with a unique accounting engine and asset management for better control over the processes. The striking feature of Alfa Systems is its configurability, where the product can be engineered to generate product templates and customized workflow. "Our overarching capabilities in auto finance management puts customers in an advantageous position to launch new services and strategies around auto loans, auto leases, value added services, and fulfillment process," says Andrew Denton, CEO at Alfa. Furthermore, the advanced databases and modern architecture allows Alfa Systems to process large data volumes to derive valuable business insights. With such capabilities, Alfa allows companies to deploy user-configurable business rules into all aspects of compliance, workflow, and transactions.As an enterprise system for the auto finance industry, Alfa has several top companies as clients who have successfully replaced their business systems to drive the overall outcomes. One of its customers having a vehicle fleet in the millions utilizes Alfa Systems to implement process automation to improve the workflow and decision making. "Automated workflow and decision making is not an adjunct, but the heart of Alfa," informs Denton. In another instance, a large vehicle manufacturer with multiple legacy systems wanted to consolidate all their IT systems into one. Delivering digital services while reducing the workforce was part of the strategy. The challenge, however, was to manage the entire fleet--comprising of commercial vehicles, trucks and passenger cars--in a cost-effective manner. Through Alfa Systems, the client leveraged commodity technology to achieve workflow automation and implement new digital services within months. The client also achieved the ability to view the entire customer base in a single pane of glass.With several major customers from the U.S., Alfa focuses on providing its customer base with the tools to build new, digitally native products. With innovations around connected vehicle and Blockchain gathering pace, Alfa's ability to work in core SOA will go a long way in enabling companies to capitalize on the market trends. "We aim to be the platform of choice for every asset finance company in the world," concludes Denton. Powering Auto FinanceALFAOur overarching capabilities in auto finance management puts customers in an advantageous position to launch new services and strategies around auto loans, auto leases, value added services, and fulfillment processAndrew DentonFEATUREDFEATUREDVENDORS - 2021VENDOR - 2025FEB - MARCH 2021AUTOTECHOUTLOOK.COM9We are living in an interesting era: the automobile seems to be being reinvented right after one of the deepest depressions since its invention more than 125 years ago. It is fascinating to observe how just a few years ago everything seemed to come to an end, and now there are self-driving, electric, talking, and shared vehicles taking center stage in the media, in politics, in trade shows, and in research labs.So what is going on here? Can we just not get beyond this era of the automobile, the same way society did get at some point beyond horse and buggy? Can we not altogether realize that the challenges are bigger than the benefits and find something better than the shoebox-on-wheels? Well, maybe the thing is that the automobile is so much more than just a means of transportation, so much more than just a vehicle that gets us from A to B. I guess we all know, or at least feel, that the automobile is providing us with a sense of independence, freedom, and flexibility-even if we are stuck in traffic and are asking ourselves why we are doing this every day.And because the automobile is so much more than just a means of transportation, we keep reinventing it over and over again, for the prospective benefit of us individuals, but hopefully also the benefit of society and environment. And that is exactly what the before mentioned attributes, self-driving, electric, talking, and shared, are all about. They will make automobiles­and therefore road traffic­ safer, more efficient, more sustainable, and more enjoyable. But before we talk about making things better, let's take a look at where we are at right now.For one, we have about 33,000 people killed in road traffic accidents in the United States every year. That is, about 90 people who will not wake up tomorrow because they perished in an accident today. The problem with that is­despite the fact that every life perished is one too many­that this hasbecome normal or acceptable. If you do a quick internet search, these numbers are being set in perspective with wars, diseases, other traffic accidents, and the like. And that shows us how bad it actually really is and that road traffic accidents are nothing else than an epidemic.Now the other thing is that there are already so many vehicles on the road­the average one is occupied with 1.6 people­and that all these vehicles cause congestion, gridlock, and standstill. Hence, the average commuter in the U.S. loses about 36 hours every year because of this congestion, gridlock, and standstill. And that is time lost that we all would like to rather be spending with our families or friends, pursuing our hobbies, resting, or­ if you must­ working more. But we are stuck in traffic asking ourselves like thousands of people around us why we are doing this every day.And the problem obviously is what comes out of the automobile when it actually moves, or even if it is just stuck for that matter. The debate about climate change seems to be going into a next round and the energy resources are being depleted­shale oil and biofuels might help, but are they really the solution? Another data point that is of relevance regarding vehicle emissions is the health impact, which is estimated like something in the order of $40-70 Bn every year, mostly respiratory and cardiovascular diseases as well as cancer that can be linked to the operation of our automobiles.Now, what can we do to make automobiles safer, more efficient, more sustainable, and more enjoyable? To answer that question, we should take a look at each of the topics electrification, automation, communication, and commoditization one by one.FUTURE OF AUTOMOBILE: ELECTRIFIED­AUTOMATED­CONNECTED­COMMODITIZEDBy Dr. Sven A Beiker, Executive Director, Center for Automotive Research at Stanford (CARS)CXOINSIGHTSDr. Sven A Beiker
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