LeasePlan had experienced an increase in Excel-based end-user developed applications which resulted in significant governance and compliance issues.
Replacing these spreadsheets was not a practical solution so they turned to EASA, whose unique technology enables the retention of the original spreadsheets but also prevents users from directly accessing them. This eliminates security risks and prevents undesirable edits, while providing an automated audit capability or “paper trail” to address the governance and compliance problems.
EASA is the only tool we were able to find that can fully address the Governance, Risk and Compliance issues of spreadsheets.
Grant Donnell
Application Landscape Manager, LeasePlan New Zealand
Like many organizations, LeasePlan NZ has a core ICT system supplemented by many desktop solutions such as spreadsheets and MS Access databases. Many of these end-user developed solutions do not measure up in this age of increasing focus on compliance and both regulatory and business control. This is where we saw the opportunity for the EASA platform.
In 2012, LeasePlan conducted a proof of concept with EASA, a platform that enables rapid creation of web apps which can interact with spreadsheets, databases, and legacy tools. For the proof of concept, an application (or “EASAP”) was created based on an existing Excel spreadsheet used for data entry of third-party leasing details. The new application greatly simplified and streamlined the user interface and operation of the tool.
Following this, a more ambitious project was undertaken to create a Profitability Model application combined with a Pricing Approval application and including workflow components. This utilizes a complex user-developed back-end Excel spreadsheet. The application interfaces with the legacy system to update multiple tables and to generate approved contracts for new and existing customers.The initial version of the Profitability Model and Pricing Approval took only 12 weeks of development work effort to prepare – much less than would have been the case using conventional application development. This demonstrated the enormous value of EASA’s ability to reuse a spreadsheet as a “logic engine” for an enterprise web application.The Profitability Model now has multiple users in sales and marketing, commercial, and contracts departments, and enables “what if” analysis of every deal negotiated with LeasePlan.
This validates the tremendous benefit of re-using knowledge already in the business in the form of Excel spreadsheets.
An additional unexpected benefit is EASA’s ability to rapidly generate working prototypes for proposed applications. Thus far, LeasePlan has developed apps for, among others:
This Profitability Model and Pricing Approval application took only 12 weeks of development, which demonstrates the enormous value of EASA’s ability to reuse a spreadsheet as a “logic engine” for an enterprise web application. The Profitability Model now has multiple users in sales and marketing, commercial, and contracts departments; it enables “what if” analysis of every deal negotiated by LeasePlan. LeasePlan has used EASA to build and deploy about 20 applications to date.
Request a free project consultation with EASA so we can discuss your requirements and, if desired, provide you with a demonstration of the software.