Making the right decisions in asset finance

Data Centricity and the Information Equation

In the movie Wall Street (1987), Gordon Gekko famously said, “The most valuable commodity I know of is information”. While he said that almost 40 years ago, we believe it is even more relevant now than ever before.

Business success at every level relies on leaders making decisions based on the best available information.

What is ‘information’ though? The Oxford dictionary defines information as, ‘Data that has been transformed through analysis and interpretation into a form which is useful for drawing conclusions and making decisions.’

While that is a good general definition, we propose a better definition for businesses where making the right decisions is crucial to enterprise success —The Information Equation which is:

Information = Data + Structure + Context

To truly benefit from decisions made using The Information Equation, businesses must make data centricity a priority. This means treating data as the most critical element to guide all processes, systems, and most importantly, decisions.

Making data the central asset helps in breaking free from the vicious cycle of managing multiple platforms, workarounds, processes and the inevitable data friction between platforms. For an asset finance business, a data-centric mindset can rapidly streamline portfolio management, improve risk management, enhance customer satisfaction, and adapt swiftly to market changes.

It allows businesses to focus on what matters most: delivering value to their customers and, ultimately, driving profitability.

How is this achieved? Here are three north star principles to follow on the journey to adopting The Information Equation:

Focus on outcomes. Be flexible with the approach.

Start with a clear target outcome, then remain flexible about how you achieve it within the agreed period. For example, the goal might be to settle 50% of the deals in the sales pipeline in 50% of the time it is currently taking. The exact steps to achieve this can evolve, but the focus must remain on the outcome.

The outcome matters more than a rigid approach.

A famous example is the Apollo Moon mission. The mission’s primary goal was conceptually simple: “Get a man to the moon and bring him safely back to Earth.”

All plans and decisions that followed were focused on achieving the agreed outcome. There was flexibility in the approach to success. However, the purpose remained clear and unchanged.

The result? One of the most ambitious technology and engineering projects in history was successfully completed in just 9 years—an entire year ahead of schedule.

Make data actionable

While critical, data alone isn’t enough. The true power of data is in how it is organized and contextualized. Invest in tools that help you organize, analyze, and visualize data in a way that supports informed decision-making.

Structured data, enriched with context, drives smarter decisions.

From understanding asset performance to tracking deal pipelines and analyzing financial risks, ensuring data is managed with the correct structure and context completes The Information Equation. This, in turn, generates timely information that drives faster, more informed decisions.

Base decisions on the right information

A decision is the action taken on an assessment of the data model at a defined point in time.

By anchoring decisions to correctly structured and contextualized data, businesses can minimize bias, increase consistency, and focus on actions that align with their goals. Data-driven decision-making isn’t just about having data — it’s about acting on it in a structured, timely way.

For example, while evaluating an asset lease contract application, a well-structured data model can provide timely clarity. This can help a decision-maker to confidently request more information and/or approve/decline based on how the application data complies with the credit policy at the time of the credit approval request.

Even the best technology built to help businesses make better decisions will not deliver real value without the right data and structural data management framework in place. Take a step back and reflect on how your business makes information well-structured, accessible, and actionable.

Leading businesses consistently make the right decisions because their decisions come from the right information. The right information is the output of data, structure and context.

How an asset finance software supports data centricity

Data centricity is essential in asset finance because your operations rely on leveraging real-time, accurate data to assess risk, stay compliant, and make better decisions. A modern asset finance platform strengthens this approach in these key ways:

• A unified, end-to-end system
  Managing the entire customer journey—from originations to servicing—on a single lease management platform utilizing a well-structured data model ensures a single source of truth for all data. This eliminates data silos, ensures consistency, and improves operational efficiency by providing a detailed view of each customer and asset.
• Asset-level data management
  Instead of linking data solely to contracts, a robust platform maintains detailed records for each asset independently. Odessa has a true, independent asset register as the foundation of our platform architecture. We believe this is the only design which can truly support the asset-centric nature of the diverse, global business models we support.
• Smarter decisions
  By presenting key data sets in meaningful context, a data-centric platform consistently presents decision makers with the right information to make the right decisions at the right time. Whether assessing a lease application, reviewing portfolio risk, or analyzing financial trends, having contextualized data readily available leads to faster, more informed decisions.
• Customer delight
  A data-centric asset finance platform enables better self-service, instant approvals, and personalized financing terms. Customers benefit from faster, more transparent interactions, leading to higher satisfaction.

A truly data-centric approach goes beyond just access to data—it drives innovation by requiring the right tools to structure, manage, and apply that data effectively. Choose wisely.