ATLANTA -

White Clarke Group acknowledged that it seemed like just a few months ago that experts thought auto finance companies would inevitably lose their businesses to technology-savvy new players entering the market as disruptors.

The company predicted these new entrants would focus hard on customer needs, understand where the weaknesses are in existing sales models, and use their techy skills to better serve auto finance customers and thereby outcompete the more traditional, slow-moving market incumbents.

At this May’s International Auto Finance Network conference in London, however, White Clarke Group highlighted that attendees were given a glimpse of a potentially different outcome — one in which tiny fintech start-ups and mighty manufacturer captives could work together to solve problems on the road to a digital auto finance future.

Jonny Combe, product and channel development manager at BMW Financial Services, told conference attendees how the captive has teamed up with corporate innovation specialist and investment fund managers L Marks to identify early stage growth companies they can bring into innovation labs and accelerators to develop innovative solutions to opportunities and problems the company faces on its journey to digitalization.

At the end of the 10-week innovation lab process, the winning start-up will win the opportunity to pilot its solution with BMW, as well as gaining investment from both L Marks and BMW.

“It is not hard to see the attraction to fintech entrepreneurs of winning the support of a large organization like BMW — particularly as their world becomes ever more crowded and competition for funding becomes increasingly intense,” White Clarke Group said.

“What is interesting, however, is that BMW sees innovation labs as a part of a larger cultural transformation which they (and by extension all captives) need to make in order to dominate digital real estate in tomorrow’s auto finance world,” the firm continued.

White Clarke Group pointed out that employees in large organizations tend to think alike, and to recruit those with the same characteristics. Combe argued that this leaves the business vulnerable — particularly at times like now when the industry is facing rapid change, and the need to develop new core competencies.

“Innovation labs would seem to offer a way for fintech and captives to learn from each other, bringing increased diversity and entrepreneurial innovation into the very heart of BMW — rather than leaving it outside, as one would in a more normal traditional supplier-customer relationship — helping BMW to build solutions faster, and to absorb some of the innovative new skills of their start-up partners,” White Clarke Group said.

If successful, White Clarke Group insisted the results could be interesting.

“This is an imaginative and interesting solution to a critical industry challenge, and one which, in our opinion, deserves to succeed,” White Clarke Group officials said.

Combe’s conference presentation can be seen in the window at the top of this page or by going here.