Every company wants to be innovative, whether they admit it or not. However, going from wanting to be innovative to actually being innovative takes dedication. Alfa, a technology and software company that has been delivering systems and consultancy services to the equipment finance industry since 1990, is a prime example of what such dedication looks like. Rather than just asking its employees to find ways to be innovative in the process of handling their day-to-day responsibilities, Alfa actually dedicates time, energy and resources to innovation itself, urging other companies to focus on establishing a framework and/or core platform for innovation as well.

Focusing on its own brand of “lean innovation,” Alfa hosts regular innovation days and events throughout each year in all the regions it operates to ensure employees have baked in days to focus on innovation on their calendars.

The most prominent component of these innovation events is Alfa’s annual hackathons, which the company says are “the bedrock of the innovation culture at Alfa.” During these events, every member of Alfa’s employee base is tasked with working on something new. Whether it be a software enhancement, a process improvement, an ESG initiative or something entirely outside the scope of the business’ current operations, the only requirement is that the project be fresh. Since Alfa’s ethos does not support innovation in isolation, the hackathon events require cross-functional teams to work together over 24 hours on their chosen projects, which are then entered into a competition in the categories of either product, delivery, people or “blue sky.” Winners are then selected by the entire company following short presentations from each team.

Alfa’s many innovation events, including its hackathons, have led to breakthrough innovations across its business, ranging from the granular (Alfa Astra, an automated code refactoring tool that is now open-sourced) to the industry-defining (Compose, a no-code screen design tool that has been launched commercially).

“Before you make innovation happen, you have to make it possible. This means establishing
a framework that makes people feel comfortable to innovate and making it clear that innovation is something you want and need in your business,” Andrew Denton, CEO of Alfa, says. “If you provide a democratic, inclusive environment and invite a group of motivated people to go and get on with it, then you see the best bottom-up ideas and the biggest chance of success.”

Although Alfa is focused on innovation, it does not believe in innovation for its own sake. Its innovation process begins with identifying what any innovation project is trying to achieve and then outlining how to measure success. From there, experimentation leads to iteration and improvement until a fully formed solution can be implemented.

The driving force behind much of Alfa’s innovation is its customers’ desire to address operational challenges of improving efficiency and achieving economies of scale. Challenged to deliver increasingly simple and more user-friendly platforms, Compose is Alfa’s most recent innovation; a self-designed, drag-and-drop, no-code solution within its Alfa Systems lease and loan origination and management software. Through Compose, Alfa Systems users no longer need to raise change requests for customized targeted screens, as they can address the need themselves, often within minutes. Compose is just the latest advancement for Alfa Systems and given Alfa’s innovation focus, it won’t be the last.

“Innovation at Alfa presents opportunities for colleagues to take a step back from the everyday and challenge ourselves on how we can best serve our industry and improve our ways of working in an ever-changing world,” Zoe Voisey, a digital product owner at Alfa, says. “Alfa’s innovation culture strongly represents our company values and is key to helping us to achieve our purpose: to make our customers future-ready.” •