Customers demand lease agreements that allow for change, reduce or eliminate penalties, and prevent surprises during or at the end of the term. Finance partners have responded by offering unprecedented flexibility and risk mitigation.

Lift truck users who have embraced the concept of total cost of ownership (TCO) can probably still recall the days when making sense of asset, labor and maintenance costs was a much foggier ordeal. Annual reviews of maintenance costs offered no visibility into each asset’s economic life and could not support accountability for operators or service providers. Utilization averages and other guesstimates led to lease structures based on specifications divorced from the actual application. As a result, unplanned expenses, end-of-term surprises and fire drills of all kinds were the norm, but seen as necessary expenditures in pursuit of sustained productivity.

Read the full article in Modern Material Handling here. Lift Truck Series: Funding flexibility