IBM''s financing business, IBM Global Financing (IGF), has funded $2 billion of financing deals for IBM business partners and resellers through its rapid online financing (RoF) tool.

IGF, the world''s premier single-source provider for multi vendor IT financing solutions, serves commercial clients ranging from small businesses to the majority of the Fortune 100. With assets of $34 billion worldwide, IGF provides project financing, commercial financing and asset-recovery services

RoF is an internet-based funding system developed especially for resellers financing technology equipment and solutions priced in the $500,000 and under range. Since its launch in the US last year and in Europe a few years prior, RoF has been used to qualify over $10 billion in equipment financing deals for the IBM channel. Today ROF is deployed in 32 countries and in 17 languages with almost 3500 IBM business partner companies and some 8000 users actively enabled on the platform.

"Rapid Online Financing has become a key technology sales channel enabler," said Riccardo Forlenza, vice president for channel financing, IBM Global Financing. "Resellers are demonstrating through its success that getting lease rates and contracts on the spot — without outside intervention —and getting paid quickly can result in more equipment sales at better margins. This is exactly what RoF delivers."

RoF''s simplicity has also made it very attractive to IBM''s business partners and resellers. By providing a single, standard format for all financing requests and one, common entry point for all requestors, business partners are finding that it is easier to do business with IBM. In addition, IBM Global Financing regularly turns to its channel partners for suggestions to continuously improve the system and develop even faster turnarounds on requests.

"RoF has been a tremendous asset to Arrow ECS'' ability to generate quotes for our reseller partners," said Kevin Gilroy, president of Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions, a business unit of Arrow Electronics. "With greatly improved speed of execution and ease of use, this tool has enabled us to quickly finance transactions so our partners can close more business and get paid more quickly."

With RoF, IBM is making it easier for their resellers to get paid. In a climate of shrinking margins throughout the IT supply chain, RoF provides an opportunity for marked reductions in day''s sales outstanding (DSO). With RoF, resellers can quickly generate financing proposals, submit credit checks, produce documents and track payments right from the Internet browser of their computer.

The entire transaction process can be completed without having to contact an IBM Global Financing representative, thus putting the business partner in the driving seat. In just a few minutes, a Business Partner can tailor a proposal to meet their clients'' needs. Once finalized, a reseller can simply print off the contract or email it to their client for a signature. ROF transactions can typically be processed in less than an hour.

Users can generate proposals, submit credit checks, produce documents and track payments making IBM much easier to do business with once they create their own user identity and password.