Finance and Insurance - The Profit Center I would like to make myself clear on a few items of interest before I get too deep into the sales processes at any dealership, including: automobile, recreational vehicles, boats, motorcycle, and even furniture or other big ticket items. A business has to turn a fair profit in order to stay in business. I believe that they should make this profit and use it to pay better quality employees a premium wage in order to serve you better. The financial strengths or weaknesses of any business can definitely have a dramatic effect on your customer service and satisfaction. I do not, in any shape or form, wish to hurt a dealerships profitability, as it is essential for his survival. I merely want to advise people how to negotiate a little better in order to make the profit center more balanced. Let's get right down to this! Every dealership has a finance and insurance department. This department is a huge profit center in any dealership. In some cases, it earns more money than the sale of the automobile itself. Profits are made from many things that most buyers do not understand. You as a consumer should understand the "flow" of the sales process to understand the profit centers that are ahead of you. Most negotiating from the consumer seems to stop after the original price is negotiated and agreed upon. Let's examine just a small portion of what leads up to that point. The first thing that every consumer should understand is that when you go to a dealership several things come into play. One of the most important things that I could point out to you is that you are dealing with a business that has been trained to get the most amount of money from you as they can. They are trained and they practice these tactics everyday, day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. Let me point out a couple of important facts that I have said in this paragraph. First, you'll notice that I said a dealership and not a salesman and secondly, I emphasized times of day after day, week after week, etc. etc. This was done to let you know that the salesman is working very closely with the sales managers in order to make as much money as he can. Your interests are really not their objective in most cases. One tactic that is used heavily in the business is that the salesman says he is new to the business. This may be true or not, however; keep in mind that he does not work alone. He is working with store management, who gives him advice on what to say and when to say it. These guys or gals are very well trained on how to overcome every objection that you may have to buying from them. They have been trained in the psychology of the buyer and how to tell what your "hot buttons" are. They listen to things in your conversation that you may say to one another as well as to the salesman. They are trained to tell their desk managers everything that you say and then the desk manager is trained to tell the salesman exactly what and how to answer you. A seasoned salesman does not need as much advice from his desk and may negotiate a little more with you directly without going back and forth. The process of negotiation begins the moment that you walk into the front door or step foot out of your car and begin to look at vehicles. Different stores display inventory in different ways. This is done for crowd control or more commonly known as "up control". Control is the first step in negotiating with a customer. Ever who asks the questions controls the situation. Let me give you an example: A salesman walks up to you and says "Welcome to ABC motors, my name is Joe, and what is yours?" The salesman has just asked the first question- you answer "My name is George." He then asks you what you are looking for today, or; the famous "Can I help You?" As you can see, step after step, question after question, he leads you down a path that he is trained to do. Many times a well trained salesperson will not answer your questions directly. In some cases, they only respond to questions with other questions in order to avert the loss of control. An example of this could be something like you asking the salesman if he has this same car with an automatic rather than a stick shift. Two responses could come back to you. One would be yes or no, the other could very well be something along the lines of: 'don't you know how to drive a stick shift?" In the second response the salesman gained more information from you in order to close you. Closing means to overcome every objection and give your customer no way out other than where do I sign. The art of selling truly is a science of well scripted roll playing and rehearsal. We have established that the negotiating process begins with a series of questions. These questions serve as two main elements of the sales process. First and foremost is to establish rapport and control. The more information that you are willing to share with you salesman in the first few minutes gives him a greater control of the sales process. He has gathered mental notes on our ability to purchase such as whether you have a trade in or not, if you have a down payment, how much can you afford, are you the only decision maker (is there a spouse?), how is your credit, or do you have a payoff on your trade in? These are one of many pieces of information that they collect immediately. Secondly, this information is used to begin a conversation with store management about who the salesman is with, what are they looking for, and what is their ability to purchase. Generally, a sales manager then directs the sales process from his seat in the "tower". A seat that generally overlooks the sales floor or the sales lot. He is kind of like a conductor of an orchestra, seeing all, and hearing all. I cannot describe the entire sales process with you as this varies from dealer to dealer, however; the basic principals of the sale do not vary too much. Most dealerships get started after a demo or test drive. Usually a salesman gets a sheet of paper out that is called a four square. The four square is normally used to find the customer's "hot points". The four corners of the sheet have the following items addressed, not necessarily in this order. Number one is sales price, number two is trade value, number three is down payment, and number four is monthly payments. The idea here is to reduce three out of the four items and focus on YOUR hot button. Every person settles in on something different. The idea for the salesman is to get you to focus and commit to one or two of the hot buttons without even addressing the other two or three items. When you do settle in on one of the items on the four square, the process of closing you becomes much easier. One thing to keep in mind is that all four items are usually negotiable and are usually submitted to you the first time in a manner as to maximize the profit that the dealer earns on the deal. Usually the MSRP is listed unless there is a sales price that is advertised (in may cases the vehicle is advertised, but; you are not aware). The trade value is usually first submitted to you as wholesale value. Most dealers request 25-33% down payment. Most monthly payments are inflated using maximum rate. What this all boils down to is that the price is usually always negotiable, the trade in is definitely negotiable, the down payment may be what you choose, and the monthly payment and interest rates are most certainly negotiable. If you do your homework prior to a dealership visit you can go into the negotiation process better armed. You still need to keep two things in mind through this process. The first item is that you are dealing with a sales TEAM that is usually highly skilled and money motivated. The more you pay the more they earn. The second item to remember is that you may have done your homework and think that you are getting a great deal and the dealer is still making a lot of money. The latter part of this statement goes back to the fact that it is essential for a dealer to make a "fair" profit in order to serve you better. Once your negotiations are somewhat settled, you are then taken to the business or finance department to finalize your paperwork. Keep in mind that this too is another negotiating process. In fact, the finance manager is usually one of the top trained sales associates that definitely knows all the ins and outs of maximizing the dealerships profit. It is in the finance department that many dealers actually earn more than they earned by selling the car, boat, RV, or other large ticket item to you. We will break these profit centers down for you and enlighten you as to how the process usually works. Remember that finance people are more often than not a superior skilled negotiator that is still representing the dealership. It may seem that he or she has your best interests at heart, but; they are still profit centered. The real problem with finance departments are that the average consumer has just put his or her guard down. They have just negotiated hard for what is assumed to be a good deal. They have taken this deal at full faced value and assume that all negotiations are done. The average consumer doesn't even have an understanding of finances or how the finance department functions. The average consumer nearly "lays down" for anything that the finance manager says. The interest rate is one of the largest profit centers in the finance department. For example, the dealership buys the interest rate from the bank the same way that he buys the car from the manufacturer. He may only have to pay 6% to the bank for a $25,000 loan. He can then charge you 8% for that same $25,000. The dealer is paid on the difference. If this is a five year loan that amount could very well be $2,000. So the dealer makes an additional $2,000 profit on the sale when the bank funds the loan. This is called a rate spread or "reserves". In mortgages, this is disclosed at time of closing on the HUD-1 statement as Yield Spread Premium. This may also be disclosed on the Good Faith Estimate or GFE. You can see why it becomes important to understand bank rates and financing. Many finance managers use a menu to sell aftermarket products to you. This process is very similar to the four square process that I discussed in the beginning. There are usually items like gap insurance, extended service contracts, paint and fabric guard, as well as many other after market products available from this dealer. The menu again is usually stacked up to be presented to the consumer in a way that the dealer maximizes his profitability if you take the best plan available. The presentation is usually given in a manner in which the dealer wins no matter what options are chosen. With the additional items being pitched to you at closing, your mind becomes less entrenched on the rates and terms and your focus then turns to the after market products. Each aftermarket item can very well make the dealer up to 300-400% over what he pays for these items. Gap coverage for example may cost the dealer $195.00 and is sold to the consumer for $895.00. The $700.00 is pure profit to the dealer and is very rarely negotiated down during this process. The service contract may only cost a dealer $650.00 and is being sold for $2000.00. The difference in these items are pure profit to the dealer. You see, if you only paid $995.00 for the same contract, the dealer still earns $345.00 profit from you and you still have the same coverage that you would have had if you had paid the $2000.00. The same is true for the gap coverage. You are covered the same if you paid $395.00 or $895.00 if the dealers costs are only $195.00. The only difference is the amount of profit that you paid to the dealer. Another huge profit center is paint and fabric protector. In most cases the costs to apply the product are minimal (around $125.00 on average). In many cases the dealer charges you $1200-$1800 for this paint and fabric guard. As you can see, these products sold in the finance department are huge profit centers and are negotiable. I also have to recommend the value of most all products sold in a finance department. It is in your best interest to get the best coverage possible at the best price possible. Always remember this: The dealer has to make a fair profit to stay in business. It just doesn't have to be all out of your pocket.
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Bekas Pengawal Peribadi Tun M Dedah Rahsia










Business Analyst Finance Domain Sample Resume This is just a sample Business Analyst resume for freshers as well as for experienced job seekers in Finance domain of business analyst or system analyst. While this is only a sample resume, please use this only for reference purpose, do not copy the same client names or job duties for your own purpose. Always make your own resume with genuine experience. Name: Justin Megha Ph no: XXXXXXX your email here. Business Analyst, Business Systems Analyst SUMMARY Accomplished in Business Analysis, System Analysis, Quality Analysis and Project Management with extensive experience in business products, operations and Information Technology on the capital markets space specializing in Finance such as Trading, Fixed Income, Equities, Bonds, Derivatives(Swaps, Options, etc) and Mortgage with sound knowledge of broad range of financial instruments. Over 11+ Years of proven track record as value-adding, delivery-loaded project hardened professional with hands-on expertise spanning in System Analysis, Architecting Financial applications, Data warehousing, Data Migrations, Data Processing, ERP applications, SOX Implementation and Process Compliance Projects. Accomplishments in analysis of large-scale business systems, Project Charters, Business Requirement Documents, Business Overview Documents, Authoring Narrative Use Cases, Functional Specifications, and Technical Specifications, data warehousing, reporting and testing plans. Expertise in creating UML based Modelling views like Activity/ Use Case/Data Flow/Business Flow /Navigational Flow/Wire Frame diagrams using Rational Products & MS Visio. Proficient as long time liaison between business and technology with competence in Full Life Cycle of System (SLC) development with Waterfall, Agile, RUP methodology, IT Auditing and SOX Concepts as well as broad cross-functional experiences leveraging multiple frameworks. Extensively worked with the On-site and Off-shore Quality Assurance Groups by assisting the QA team to perform Black Box /GUI testing/ Functionality /Regression /System /Unit/Stress /Performance/ UAT's. Facilitated change management across entire process from project conceptualization to testing through project delivery, Software Development & Implementation Management in diverse business & technical environments, with demonstrated leadership abilities. EDUCATION Post Graduate Diploma (in Business Administration), USA Master's Degree (in Computer Applications), Bachelor's Degree (in Commerce), TECHNICAL SKILLS Documentation Tools UML, MS Office (Word, Excel, Power Point, Project), MS Visio, Erwin SDLC Methodologies Waterfall, Iterative, Rational Unified Process (RUP), Spiral, Agile Modeling Tools UML, MS Visio, Erwin, Power Designer, Metastrom Provision Reporting Tools Business Objects X IR2, Crystal Reports, MS Office Suite QA Tools Quality Center, Test Director, Win Runner, Load Runner, QTP, Rational Requisite Pro, Bugzilla, Clear Quest Languages Java, VB, SQL, HTML, XML, UML, ASP, JSP Databases & OS MS SQL Server, Oracle 10g, DB2, MS Access on Windows XP / 2000, Unix Version Control Rational Clear Case, Visual Source Safe PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE SERVICE MASTER, Memphis, TN June 08 - Till Date Senior Business Analyst Terminix has approximately 800 customer service agents that reside in our branches in addition to approximately 150 agents in a centralized call center in Memphis, TN. Terminix customer service agents receive approximately 25 million calls from customers each year. Many of these customer's questions are not answered or their problems are not resolved on the first call. Currently these agents use an AS/400 based custom developed system called Mission to answer customer inquiries into branches and the Customer Communication Center. Mission - Terminix's operation system - provides functionality for sales, field service (routing & scheduling, work order management), accounts receivable, and payroll. This system is designed modularly and is difficult to navigate for customer service agents needing to assist the customer quickly and knowledgeably. The amount of effort and time needed to train a customer service representative using the Mission system is high. This combined with low agent and customer retention is costly. Customer Service Console enables Customer Service Associates to provide consistent, enhanced service experience, support to the Customers across the Organization. CSC is aimed at providing easy navigation, easy learning process, reduced call time and first call resolution. Responsibilities Assisted in creating Project Plan, Road Map. Designed Requirements Planning and Management document. Performed Enterprise Analysis and actively participated in buying Tool Licenses. Identified subject-matter experts and drove the requirements gathering process through approval of the documents that convey their needs to management, developers, and quality assurance team. Performed technical project consultation, initiation, collection and documentation of client business and functional requirements, solution alternatives, functional design, testing and implementation support. Requirements Elicitation, Analysis, Communication, and Validation according to Six Sigma Standards. Captured Business Process Flows and Reengineered Process to achieve maximum outputs. Captured As-Is Process, designed TO-BE Process and performed Gap Analysis Developed and updated functional use cases and conducted business process modeling (PROVISION) to explain business requirements to development and QA teams. Created Business Requirements Documents, Functional and Software Requirements Specification Documents. Performed Requirements Elicitation through Use Cases, one to one meetings, Affinity Exercises, SIPOC's. Gathered and documented Use Cases, Business Rules, created and maintained Requirements/Test Traceability Matrices. Client: The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, Parsippany, NJ May' 2007 - Oct' 2007 Profile: Sr. Financial Business Analyst/ Systems Analyst. Project Profile (1): D&B is the world's leading source of commercial information and insight on businesses. The Point of Arrival Project and the Data Maintenance (DM) Project are the future applications of the company that the company would transit into, providing an effective method & efficient report generation system for D&B's clients to be able purchase reports about companies they are trying to do business. Project Profile (2): The overall purpose of this project was building a Self Awareness System(SAS) for the business community for buying SAS products and a Payment system was built for SAS. The system would provide certain combination of products (reports) for Self Monitoring report as a foundation for managing a company's credit. Responsibilities: Conducted GAP Analysis and documented the current state and future state, after understanding the Vision from the Business Group and the Technology Group. Conducted interviews with Process Owners, Administrators and Functional Heads to gather audit-related information and facilitated meetings to explain the impacts and effects of SOX compliance. Played an active and lead role in gathering, analyzing and documenting the Business Requirements, the business rules and Technical Requirements from the Business Group and the Technological Group. Co - Authored and prepared Graphical depictions of Narrative Use Cases, created UML Models such as Use Case Diagrams, Activity Diagrams and Flow Diagrams using MS Visio throughout the Agile methodology Documented the Business Requirement Document to get a better understanding of client's business processes of both the projects using the Agile methodology. Facilitating JRP and JAD sessions, brain storming sessions with the Business Group and the Technology Group. Documented the Requirement traceability matrix (RTM) and conducted UML Modelling such as creating Activity Diagrams, Flow Diagrams using MS Visio. Analysed test data to detect significant findings and recommended corrective measures Co-Managed the Change Control process for the entire project as a whole by facilitating group meetings, one-on-one interview sessions and email correspondence with work stream owners to discuss the impact of Change Request on the project. Worked with the Project Lead in setting realistic project expectations and in evaluating the impact of changes on the organization and plans accordingly and conducted project related presentations. Co-oordinated with the off shore QA Team members to explain and develop the Test Plans, Test cases, Test and Evaluation strategy and methods for unit testing, functional testing and usability testing Environment: Windows XP/2000, SOX, Sharepoint, SQL, MS Visio, Oracle, MS Office Suite, Mercury ITG, Mercury Quality Center, XML, XHTML, Java, J2EE. GATEWAY COMPUTERS, Irvine, CA, Jan 06 - Mar 07 Business Analyst At Gateway, a Leading Computer, Laptop and Accessory Manufacturer, was involved in two projects, Order Capture Application: Objective of this Project is to Develop Various Mediums of Sales with a Centralized Catalog. This project involves wide exposure towards Requirement Analysis, Creating, Executing and Maintaining of Test plans and Test Cases. Mentored and trained staff about Tech Guide & Company Standards; Gateway reporting system: was developed with Business Objects running against Oracle data warehouse with Sales, Inventory, and HR Data Marts. This DW serves the different needs of Sales Personnel and Management. Involved in the development of it utilized Full Client reports and Web Intelligence to deliver analytics to the Contract Administration group and Pricing groups. Reporting data mart included Wholesaler Sales, Contract Sales and Rebates data. Responsibilities: Product Manager for Enterprise Level Order Entry Systems - Phone, B2B, Gateway.com and Cataloging System. Modeled the Sales Order Entry process to eliminate bottleneck process steps using ERWIN. Adhered and practiced RUP for implementing software development life cycle. Gathered Requirements from different sources like Stakeholders, Documentation, Corporate Goals, Existing Systems, and Subject Matter Experts by conducting Workshops, Interviews, Use Cases, Prototypes, Reading Documents, Market Analysis, Observations Created Functional Requirement Specification documents - which include UMLUse case diagrams, Scenarios, activity, work Flow diagrams and data mapping. Process and Data modeling with MS VISIO. Worked with Technical Team to create Business Services (Web Services) that Application could leverage using SOA, to create System Architecture and CDM for common order platform. Designed Payment Authorization (Credit Card, Net Terms, and Pay Pal) for the transaction/order entry systems. Implemented A/B Testing, Customer Feedback Functionality to Gateway.com Worked with the DW, ETL teams to create Order entry systems Business Objects reports. (Full Client, Web I) Worked in a cross functional team of Business, Architects and Developers to implement new features. Program Managed Enterprise Order Entry Systems - Development and Deployment Schedule. Developed and maintained User Manuals, Application Documentation Manual, on Share Point tool. Created Test Plansand Test Strategies to define the Objective and Approach of testing. Used Quality Center to track and report system defects and bug fixes. Written modification requests for the bugs in the application and helped developers to track and resolve the problems. Developed and Executed Manual, Automated Functional, GUI, Regression, UAT Test cases using QTP. Gathered, documented and executed Requirements-based, Business process (workflow/user scenario), Data driven test cases for User Acceptance Testing. Created Test Matrix, Used Quality Center for Test Management, track & report system defects and bug fixes. Performed Load, stress Testing's & Analyzed Performance, Response Times. Designed approach, developed visual scripts in order to test client & server side performance under various conditions to identify bottlenecks. Created / developed SQL Queries (TOAD) with several parameters for Backend/DB testing Conducted meetings for project status, issue identification, and parent task review, Progress Reporting. AMC MORTGAGE SERVICES, CA, USA Oct 04 - Dec 05 Business Analyst The primary objective of this project is to replace the existing Internal Facing Client / Server Applications with a Web enabled Application System, which can be used across all the Business Channels. This project involves wide exposure towards Requirement Analysis, Creating, Executing and Maintaining of Test plans and Test Cases. Demands understanding and testing of Data Warehouse and Data Marts, thorough knowledge of ETL and Reporting, Enhancement of the Legacy System covered all of the business requirements related to Valuations from maintaining the panel of appraisers to ordering, receiving, and reviewing the valuations. Responsibilities: Gathered Analyzed, Validated, and Managed and documented the stated Requirements. Interacted with users for verifying requirements, managing change control process, updating existing documentation. Created Functional Requirement Specification documents - that include UML Use case diagrams, scenarios, activity diagrams and data mapping. Provided End User Consulting on Functionality and Business Process. Acted as a client liaison to review priorities and manage the overall client queue. Provided consultation services to clients, technicians and internal departments on basic to intricate functions of the applications. Identified business directions & objectives that may influence the required data and application architectures. Defined, prioritized business requirements, Determine which business subject areas provide the most needed information; prioritize and sequence implementation projects accordingly. Provide relevant test scenarios for the testing team. Work with test team to develop system integration test scripts and ensure the testing results correspond to the business expectations. Used Test Director, QTP, Load Runner for Test management, Functional, GUI, Performance, Stress Testing Perform Data Validation, Data Integration and Backend/DB testing using SQL Queries manually. Created Test input requirements and prepared the test data for data driven testing. Mentored, trained staff about Tech Guide & Company Standards. Set-up and Coordinate Onsite offshore teams, Conduct Knowledge Transfer sessions to the offshore team. Lloyds Bank, UK Aug 03 - Sept 04 Business Analyst Lloyds TSB is leader in Business, Personal and Corporate Banking. Noted financial provider for millions of customers with the financial resources to meet and manage their credit needs and to achieve their financial goals. The Project involves an applicant Information System, Loan Appraisal and Loan Sanction, Legal, Disbursements, Accounts, MIS and Report Modules of a Housing Finance System and Enhancements for their Internet Banking. Responsibilities: Translated stakeholder requirements into various documentation deliverables such as functional specifications, use cases, workflow / process diagrams, data flow / data model diagrams. Produced functional specifications and led weekly meetings with developers and business units to discuss outstanding technical issues and deadlines that had to be met. Coordinated project activities between clients and internal groups and information technology, including project portfolio management and project pipeline planning. Provided functional expertise to developers during the technical design and construction phases of the project. Documented and analyzed business workflows and processes. Present the studies to the client for approval Participated in Universe development - planning, designing, Building, distribution, and maintenance phases. Designed and developed Universes by defining Joins, Cardinalities between the tables. Created UML use case, activity diagrams for the interaction between report analyst and the reporting systems. Successfully implemented BPR and achieved improved Performance, Reduced Time and Cost. Developed test plans and scripts; performed client testing for routine to complex processes to ensure proper system functioning. Worked closely with UAT Testers and End Users during system validation, User Acceptance Testing to expose functionality/business logic problems that unit testing and system testing have missed out. Participated in Integration, System, Regression, Performance, and UAT - Using TD, WR, Load Runner Participated in defect review meetings with the team members. Worked closely with the project manager to record, track, prioritize and close bugs. Used CVS to maintain versions between various stages of SDLC. Client: A.G. Edwards, St. Louis, MO May' 2005 - Feb' 2006 Profile: Sr. Business Analyst/System Analyst Project Profile: A.G. Edwards is a full service Trading based brokerage firm in Internet-based futures, options and forex brokerage. This site allows Users (Financial Representative) to trade online. The main features of this site were: Users can open new account online to trade equitiies, bonds, derivatives and forex with the Trading system using DTCC's applications as a Clearing House agent. The user will get real-time streaming quotes for the currency pairs they selected, their current position in the forex market, summary of work orders, payments and current money balances, P & L Accounts and available trading power, all continuously updating in real time via live quotes. The site also facilitates users to Place, Change and Cancel an Entry Order, Placing a Market Order, Place/Modify/Delete/Close a Stop Loss Limit on an Open Position. Responsibilities: Gathered Business requirements pertaining to Trading, equities and Fixed Incomes like bonds, converted the same into functional requirements by implementing the RUP methodology and authored the same in Business Requirement Document (BRD). Designed and developed all Narrative Use Cases and conducted UML modeling like created Use Case Diagrams, Process Flow Diagrams and Activity Diagrams using MS Visio. Implemented the entire Rational Unified Process (RUP) methodology of application development with its various workflows, artifacts and activities. Developed business process models in RUP to document existing and future business processes. Established a business Analysis methodology around the Rational Unified Process. Analyzed user requirements, attended Change Request meetings to document changes and implemented procedures to test changes. Assisted in developing project timelines/deliverables/strategies for effective project management. Evaluated existing practices of storing and handling important financial data for compliance. Involved in developing the test strategy and assisted in developed Test scenarios, test conditions and test cases Partnered with the technical areas in the research, resolution of system and User Acceptance Testing (UAT). Environment: Windows XP/2000/NT, SOX, MS Office Suite, SQL, MS SQL Server, XML, HTML, Java, J2EE, JSP, Oracle, WinRunner, Test Director




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