John Crews
President & CEO,
Toyota Industries Commercial Finance

President & CEO

We are halfway through the qualification period for our inaugural Partners in Excellence award trip.

In the spirit of One Toyota, we wanted to create a program and award trip bringing together both Hino and Toyota dealers and our OEM partners at Hino and TMH.

As a reminder, this year’s Partners in Excellence program runs from January 1, 2024, to May 31, 2024. The trip for winners (and a guest) will take place from October 18 – 21, 2024, at Pelican Hill Resort.

Should you have any questions regarding the program, your TICF Regional Sales Manager is available to assist.

Do you have customers who are interested in support for converting to Electric equipment?  If so, we have a brand new page on our website dedicated to Electrification!

At TICF, we want to lead the charge to help customers finance the cost of converting to an electric forklift fleet and facility. We recognize that converting to electric is a significant undertaking, and we are committed to supporting businesses in the transition from LP (liquid petroleum gas) to electric material handling equipment by creating specialty programs, structuring flexible financing solutions, and offering a team of licensed electricians dedicated to assisting you with the electrification of your facility.

Take a look at our new product page on the TICF website, and use the page as an additional resource for customers interested in electrification support.

Toyota Industries Commercial Finance (TICF) is excited to announce the launch of our newest initiative, Foundations of Financing. This latest initiative is focused on helping you provide customers with more information on the various financing solutions TICF offers.

You asked for it and we listened! We know from last fall’s Dealer Satisfaction Survey, that you asked for more materials from us to help promote financing solutions. We strive to always be your partner of choice and are excited to roll out a new enhancement aligning with our company philosophy of Kaizen, or continuous improvement.

Each Toyota dealership location received brand new pieces of collateral promoting our various financial solutions for customers. Additionally, we launched a new page on our website that features videos detailing the benefits of each financial product TICF offers for customers. The videos and collateral are new tools you can use with customers to help them determine the right financing solution to fit their business needs.

We hope this latest marketing initiative is one step closer to being the best financial services partner to you. Lastly, we would like to thank the entire team at Southeast Industrial Equipment (SIE) for graciously allowing us to film at their facility for the video series.

Please contact your RSM if you have any questions.

Thank you for your continued business and support.

Joe Latawiec might be new to TICF, but he’s definitely not new to sales. After a two-decade career in financing, primarily in consumer-focused sales and leasing for the automobile industry, he joined TICF in December 2023 as the Northeast Regional Sales Manager.

“What brought me here was the Toyota brand,” he says. “I knew it was a great organization, and I was excited about the opportunity to learn a new industry.”

Joe started his career as a credit analyst but was introduced to sales when he was paired with a salesperson and started going out in the field with his partner. He quickly realized he enjoyed the face-to-face interaction with dealers and pivoted to a sales role. “I’m a little more of an extrovert so the relationship building and working with different personalities was natural,” he explains, adding that it’s an important skill to understand how to adjust and interact with all kinds of people.

Learning about the material handling industry has been a fascinating challenge. He recently attended the Modex trade show in Atlanta and was struck by the scale of the industry, which was more involved than he had anticipated, including warehouse solutions, logistics and even auto guided vehicles (AGVs).

As Joe navigates meeting dealer needs, both parties are aligned around the importance of streamlining processes to make them more efficient. He’s looking forward to upcoming technology upgrades, such as Project Focus.

Joe appreciates the flexibility TICF offers. “In many ways we act like a startup despite our history and how established we are. I find that our size means we can be more agile, and we are committed to listening and making changes when we can,” he says. “It’s all about creating synergies to be in the One Toyota spirit and work more seamlessly to support the dealer as true partners.”

Likewise, he has been impressed with the level of interest that dealers show in TICF. “They want to know what’s on the horizon, whether it’s new technology like Project Focus, or organizational changes,” he says. “They’re invested in seeing that our company is succeeding and preparing itself for the future.”

In his short tenure Joe has been grateful for the warm welcome and support he’s received from the RSM team. “They’ve been supportive from Day One,” he says. “It’s clear they want new associates to succeed and are quick to help with questions and issues. I send a group text and someone—and often lots of “someones”—respond quickly,” he says.

Recently he’s been meeting with various teams and has had the same response from everyone in adjacent departments—an invitation to reach out as needed, for which he’s thankful.

With a 13-year-old son who plays sports just like he did when growing up, Joe finds it rewarding to see the excitement in his eyes as he competes. Besides family activities, in his spare time he loves to cook, and in fact had considered being a chef when he was younger. Now he likes to challenge himself to recreate restaurant dishes at home, from Italian spaghetti and meatballs to more extravagant fare like Indian food.

A two-year veteran of her current position as Major Accounts Manager, Michelle Garcia has been with TICF for nine years in various operational roles, a holistic background that has given her a helpful inside view throughout the company.

“Our goal is to deliver extraordinary customer care through enhanced relationships, effective analysis and problem solving, and proactive account maintenance,” she says. “This builds trust with our customers and leads to enhanced growth and profitability.”

Each of 12 team members is assigned dedicated customers (who are TMH/OEM and dealers), with the aim of becoming experts at managing all aspects of the customer account: account reconciliation, invoicing, applying payments, monitoring and maintaining the customer portfolio and supporting these major accounts through the business cycle journey.

“The team members get to know their customers and understand them on a personal and professional level, building a strong relationship with customers to earn their trust, credibility and respect,” explains Garcia.

In fact, the team currently is actively hiring for two positions. Garcia stresses it’s important the candidate demonstrate strong soft skills, as well as a willingness to reflect TICF’s core values. And she adds, “Grit and stamina are important because these traits show they possess the ability to keep trying and overcome, while having passion for their work and working toward their larger goals. It’s foundational to start from a place of credibility.”

Working for a captive finance company, with its designated customer base, offers an interesting dynamic. “We have to ensure they are our priority. Relationships are the foundation of business-to-business sales, especially in the commercial space,” Garcia says.

Through regular customer touchpoints, she can help align their needs with TICF solutions; for example, she’s found that customers are now requiring fleet management in addition to account management.

Garcia knows she needs to keep her finger on the pulse of the entire team to make sure they are a well-oiled machine that makes customers feel valued and helps them grasp TICF’s value proposition.

To that end, she pops in and out of calls and aims to visit one customer each month to review their account, answer any questions and provide ideas. “Every one of us is a piece of the puzzle, and we have to have the ability to interpret the customers’ needs and provide solutions.”

Garcia says they even extend that customer-focused philosophy by sharing TICF best practices with clients, many of whom have adapted them into their own organizations. For example, major account customer Electrolux was facing internal challenges in billing so TICF provided a solution and meets with them weekly to help implement the new invoicing practices.

By finding and closing process gaps, Major Account Service has returned to the basics to service fleet accounts by focusing on fundamental principles, such as understanding customer needs, providing tailored solutions to streamline their fleet management and maintaining strong communication with the goal of providing extraordinary customer experience.

Garcia has found the RSMs to be wonderful advocates and partners for the team, willing to step in and help as needed. In addition, she notes Mike Schultze has been a big influence and supporter, as the innovator who suggested implementing customer visits about two years ago.

Overall, she describes the service they provide as more of a personal relationship than strictly business to business. “We’re on the journey to be 100% in support with our customers.”

With her busy days at work, Garcia enjoys relaxing at home and spending time with her family and looks forward to true rest and relaxation on tropical vacations.

The Major Account Services Team with Michelle Garcia

During the next 12 months, Project FOCUS will facilitate the replacement of our credit origination system, TC3, as well as our portfolio management and servicing platform, SAP Leasing, with a single, proven software from a leading asset management software provider.

Project FOCUS was born out of your feedback, presented in dealer surveys and one-on-one conversations. It was clear from your input that we, as your finance partner, must do better for you and our mutual customers, and we have been building towards a transformation.

FOCUS stands for Finance Opportunities for Customer & User Satisfaction. What does TICF expect to accomplish? With Project FOCUS we will:

• MAKE A FRESH START: With an implementation investment of $11 million, this two-year business transformation project deploys a future-focused cloud-based, scalable, credit origination system that includes a portfolio management and servicing platform that allows us to better respond to market demand.
• NAIL THE BASICS: This system replacement delivers the best tools needed to eliminate waste, improve efficiency, and produce error-free, standardized work.
• ELEVATE THE EXPERIENCE: This project will advance our business and allow us to deliver world-class internal and external experiences that Go Beyond the Transaction.
• CREATE TRANSPARENCY: The new system will allow us to break down siloed communications with dealers and customers, and deliver transparency around the status of applications, contracts, and other requests to build trust and foster alignment.

You are going to be hearing about Project FOCUS frequently in 2024 and 2025 including the specific dealer and customer pain points this software and process change will address, as well as project updates.

The Dealer’s voice is critical to our success. We received a tremendous response from representatives of many of our dealers interested and willing to volunteer to provide the dealer perspective on Project FOCUS. We expect to introduce your dealer representatives in the next edition of The Lift.

Thank you for your business, partnership, patience, and ongoing support. We could not be more excited about what lies ahead.

More information about Project FOCUS can be found in previously published dealer information notices: Dec 2023, Jan 2024, Feb 2024, March 2024, and The Lift Issue #9.

Left to Right: Keith Courtney, Sr. Sales Manager, Leisha Nalls, TICF Forklift RSM, William Doggett, President of Doggett Industries, John Crews, President – TICF, and Michael Schultze, Sr. Director of Sales & Marketing

Attendees listening to the TICF ELT Panel Discussion

Dave Cordts, National Accounts RSM, Mark Taggart, Chairman, and Michelle Garcia, Major Account Services Manager