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Market Scan Information Systems

Business: Auto Leasing Software

Location: Westlake Village

Revenue Growth: 640%

Market Scan Information Systems’ revenue growth, while phenomenal in recent years, is just starting to ramp up, company officials insist.

Its 1997 revenues of $14.8 million are projected to hit $30 million this year, and approach $100 million next year, according to co-founder and Executive Vice President Rusty West.

The software that West designed, called Lease Prophet, brings order to the chaotic world of new-car leasing where hundreds of lenders offer hundreds of leasing programs for hundreds of car models in hundreds of different colors and configurations.

With a few touches on an interactive computer screen, car salesmen using the software can sort through all those variables and within a few moments bring up a car lease that fits the customer’s specifications. Programmed in are such factors as how much money the customer wants to put down, how many years he wants to drive the car, and how big a monthly payment he wants to handle.

West started developing the software a decade ago in the Atlanta area, and launched the company a short time later with his father, Russell, who was already in the auto leasing business.

They moved the company to California in 1990, and began expanding slowly at first, and recently at an explosive pace.

“The last couple of years have been pretty amazing,” said West, who attributes the growth both to endorsements by automobile manufacturers and to a concerted rollout effort.

“Most of the big software producers haven’t gone into this because it’s an enormous undertaking,” says West, 33. Despite the success, or perhaps because of it, West says he still puts in 100 hours a week, and has to chase his father out of the office at 2 a.m.

“The money’s better, the facilities are nicer, but it’s still kind of a passion for us. They’ll probably have to carry us out of here in a pine box,” West says.

R.W. Greene