Jan Tammen of PNC Business Credit discusses some of the lasting changes to the field exam industry brought on by the pandemic.

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. All in all, the COVID-19 pandemic was certainly one of the most stressful of times that many asset-based lending (ABL) professionals have experienced in their careers, especially in the field exam function. Rather suddenly, in a matter of a few days, the very fundamentals of the field exam job function changed. There was no more “field”, at least for the foreseeable future, and examiners lost many of the on-site capabilities that previously allowed them to be the vaunted “eyes and ears of the bank” for their institutions.

Test counts? Let’s hope there is cell phone reception in the warehouse.

Questions for the controller? Hopefully they are able to work remotely and have access to the data the team needs where they are.

Leading a team and/or training a new hire? Prepare to be even more intentional in setting up calls and monitoring progress.

The pandemic, and the messy quasi-emergence from it that the world currently finds itself in, challenged many of the notions of how due diligence could and should be performed, and posed significant challenges in technology, operation, and interaction. Once the dust settled, it also left field examiners with new approaches to how the work could be done, and age old, but ever-updated, fundamental best practices to perform it at their highest level.

Click here to read the full article.

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. All in all, the COVID-19 pandemic was certainly one of the most stressful of times that many asset-based lending (ABL) professionals have experienced in their careers, especially in the field exam function. Rather suddenly, in a matter of a few days, the very fundamentals of the field exam job function changed. There was no more “field”, at least for the foreseeable future, and examiners lost many of the on-site capabilities that previously allowed them to be the vaunted “eyes and ears of the bank” for their institutions.

Test counts? Let’s hope there is cell phone reception in the warehouse.

Questions for the controller? Hopefully they are able to work remotely and have access to the data the team needs where they are.

Leading a team and/or training a new hire? Prepare to be even more intentional in setting up calls and monitoring progress.

The pandemic, and the messy quasi-emergence from it that the world currently finds itself in, challenged many of the notions of how due diligence could and should be performed, and posed significant challenges in technology, operation, and interaction. Once the dust settled, it also left field examiners with new approaches to how the work could be done, and age old, but ever-updated, fundamental best practices to perform it at their highest level.

Click here to read the full article.