Ryder knows the importance of credit risk management in financial transactions.

The $5.3 billion supply chain and transportation solutions company derives half of its income from full-service commercial truck leasing. With a fleet of over 200,000 trucks, Ryder is the largest full-service truck leasing company in the world, serving more than 14,000 customers in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia.

With such a large market, accurately assessing the risk of each potential customer is crucial to Ryder's bottom line. Although Ryder's credit department has always had good underwriting processes and structured customer relationships to limit Ryder's exposure to losses, the company's credit-approval and risk-allocation process wasn't as accurate, consistent or cost-effective as the company wanted it to be. In addition, Ryder's mostly manual credit approval process was not keeping up with demand. At the same time, Ryder was looking to take advantage of new Internet channels throughout its business.

"We needed to implement an automated credit risk rating tool to facilitate more appropriate pricing, expedite credit analysis and better quantify risk. We also needed to update our systems to keep up with the growing demand for our services," said Corky Nelson, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Ryder. "The eCredit solution provided us with the resources to do all of this." For Ryder, the eCredit solution provides two automation services-real-time verification checks with links to credit reporting agencies and real-time credit scores that reflect Ryder's own credit management policy.

Leveraging eCredit, Ryder's 800-person sales force can now submit requests directly from their PCs and receive risk-adjusted pricing in about a minute. That's a significant improvement over the hours-and sometimes days-it used to take with manual risk-profiling. "With the instant credit checks, our sales people now have the ability to close deals with customers at the point of contact," Nelson stated. "This is a competitive advantage that allows Ryder to write extra business."

The benefits of Ryder's relationship with eCredit don't end there.

The automated credit-rating and pricing system has been more consistent and accurate than the manual system, resulting in significantly improved pricing and increased profit projections. Plus, Ryder now has a comprehensive view of corporate credit risk assumed from all channels-and the flexibility to change policy when needed.

"eCredit is a very customer-focused organization providing outstanding implementation services that helped us achieve fast time-to-benefit," said Nelson. "In our truck leasing business, we expect incremental revenue of $4 to $6 million annually."

"At the end of the day, improving the credit function has been a strategic business enabler for Ryder," said Nelson. "We've been able to increase our sales and profits and be more responsive to our customers. These are results we're really happy with."

Impressed with the rapid return on its investment in the eCredit solution, Ryder has added the eCredit Collections module, which streamlines Ryder's collections process. The collections module helps control the receivables portion of Ryder's transportation services business by streamlining back-end collections management, improving cash flow and lowering day sales outstanding (DSO).