21 August 2019

Five Myths about Equipment Rental Solutions Debunked

Construction bulldozers

In this article, we will be focusing on the central myths that are prevalent about equipment rental solutions. Though the concept of equipment rental is well-established, and we can all agree that the operational aspects have become increasingly complicated, there is still some resistance when it comes to equipment rental solutions.

That’s just brushing the surface of how equipment rental industries are changing. You’ll find many areas to look into. They all have in common is a willingness to embrace technology innovations. That’s been a hard task for equipment rental companies. They need extremely reliable software that can handle complex, industry-specific financial and operational demands. This is important for rental and integrate everything with ERP. The good news is that rental companies are finding ISV solutions that pay close attention to rental challenges. They sculpt their offerings so that they wrap tradition and innovation together.

Let us look at some specific equipment rental ERP-related myths and decipher the truth behind them:

Equipment rental ERP solutions only benefit big businesses: Due to the burgeoning demand for equipment rental, the sector is full of players ranging from small outfits to medium-sized ones and the big companies. However, any business aims to grow and expand to become better than they are right now. What a rental solution does is to look at your existing processes and make them more efficient, remove some of the unnecessary steps, and automate some of the repetitive actions. When you look at the definition of what a rental solution does, you would realize that large, medium and even smaller but ambitious rental companies can benefit from an optimum rental solution. All you need to do is ensure that you have looked at the return on investment that you expect from the solution.

Equipment rental ERP offers features that are of use only to the top management and executives: When you look at the routine operations of an equipment rental company, this myth is almost laughable. While help management and executives would benefit from the intelligence and reports they can get out of the solution, it is the field and operation teams that the solution would help the most. Not only does scheduling of deliveries and transport become better with graphical plan boards that rental solutions offer, but the field staff will also find that mobility eases the burden of paperwork and updates.

Construction bulldozers

Equipment rental solutions focus on improving internal processes only: While this myth does have some truth to it, it is not the complete truth. The rental solution does focus a lot on refining internal processes and make them more efficient. The result is that different stakeholders (both internal and external) benefit from this. Take, for instance, the way customers can benefit from the rental solution; more flexible options, better-maintained equipment, smoother pickups and drops, and online options. Or the shareholders, who can enjoy a better return on investment due to improved operations and cost savings. Or vendors who can enjoy better terms and less effort when it comes to coordination.

You can afford to ignore the support you get from your solution provider if the solution is good: The way this myth can be debunked is by likening it to a restaurant where the food is good, but the surroundings are not hygienic. What would happen?  You would fall sick after you consume the food. It is the same when you go for a good solution but ignore the credentials of the solution provider. The process of implementation, the after-implementation support, and upgrades would suffer without, proper support from your vendor.

Equipment rental solution requires a lot of coding support making the usage too IT-centric: This myth can be debunked by selecting a solution provider who has extensive experience in solving complex problems. As a result, the solution would have several out-of-the-box modules that meet the needs of different scenarios. What is more, many aspects would require configuration rather than coding support. When the solution provider makes it easy to buy, deploy, use, and maintain your equipment rental solution, the usage will be at all levels.

After reading the various points we have gone through, we can conclude that most common myths around the equipment rental industry are just that—myths.

A Buyer's Guide to Equipment Rental Software

Thumbnail_Rental Buyers Guide-1
Michiel Toppers
Michiel Toppers,
Michiel Toppers,
Senior Director of Product Management

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