Alfa selected for Monitor’s Best Companies in Equipment Finance
Alfa awarded Monitor Best Company in Equipment Finance 2024 for Innovation
Alfa has been recognised for Monitor’s first annual Best Companies in Equipment Finance in the Innovation category. Alfa was selected from a pool of more than 700 nominations as one of 32 companies that exemplify the best practices in Innovation, Culture, Leadership, DE&I and ESG.
Now in its 50th year, Monitor is the leading independent trade publication in the US equipment finance and leasing industry. The first annual Best Companies awards are a high-profile accolade in the equipment finance industry, and further solidify Alfa as a leader in the field.
While every company wants to be innovative, going from wanting to be innovative to actually being innovative takes dedication. Alfa is applauded by Monitor for the time, energy and resources it dedicates to innovation, while encouraging other companies to focus on establishing a framework for innovation as well.
“Before you make innovation happen, you have to make it possible. This means establishing a framework that makes people feel comfortable to innovate and making it clear that innovation is something you want and need in your business. If you provide a democratic, inclusive environment and invite a group of motivated people to go and get on with it, then you see the best bottom-up ideas and the biggest chance of success.”
Innovation at Alfa
Focusing on its own brand of “lean innovation,” Alfa hosts regular innovation days and events throughout each year, in all the regions it operates, to ensure employees have ‘baked-in’ days in their calendars to focus on innovation.
The most prominent component of these innovation events is Alfa’s annual hackathons, which are the bedrock of the innovation culture at Alfa. During these events, every member of Alfa’s employee base is tasked with working on something new. Whether it be a software enhancement, a process improvement, an ESG initiative or something entirely outside the scope of the business’s current operations, the only requirement is that the project be fresh. Since Alfa’s ethos does not support innovation in isolation, the hackathon events require cross-functional teams to work together over 24 hours on their chosen projects, which are then entered into a competition in the categories of either product, delivery, people or “blue sky.” Winners are then selected by the entire company following short presentations from each team.
Hackathons are central to Alfa's innovation culture
Alfa’s many innovation events, including its hackathons, have led to breakthrough innovations across its business, ranging from the granular (Alfa Astra, an automated code refactoring tool that is now open-sourced) to the industry-defining (Compose, a no-code screen design tool that has been launched commercially).
The driving force behind much of Alfa’s innovation is its customers’ desire to address operational challenges of improving efficiency and achieving economies of scale. Challenged to deliver increasingly simple and more user-friendly platforms, Compose is Alfa’s most recent innovation; a self-designed, drag-and-drop, no-code solution within its Alfa Systems lease and loan origination and management software. Through Compose, Alfa Systems users no longer need to raise change requests for customised targeted screens, as they can address the need themselves, often within minutes. Compose is just the latest advancement for Alfa Systems and given Alfa’s innovation focus, it won’t be the last.
“Innovation at Alfa presents opportunities for colleagues to take a step back from the everyday and challenge ourselves on how we can best serve our industry and improve our ways of working in an ever-changing world. Alfa’s innovation culture strongly represents our company values and is key to helping us to achieve our purpose: to make our customers future-ready.”