Zero to Forty Locations at Texas First With RentalMan

In 2015, General Manager Don Myrick was tasked with leading HOLT CAT’s journey into equipment rental with Texas First. Starting a new rental company is no small feat, but Don and his team were ready.

With bold plans for rapid expansion, running rental operations with pen and paper wasn’t going to work. The team at Texas First needed a robust software portfolio to bring exceptional efficiency and productivity to its daily operations. A digital toolset was a crucial part of the company’s future success.

A robust ERP system needed to be at the core of this new technology stack. Texas First didn’t just need any ERP system, though. It needed a rental-focused ERP system that could handle rental intricacies such as depreciation, dynamic pricing, maintenance, dispatching, and more. With prior experience with the system throughout the rental industry, the team went with the well-established industry standard, RentalMan.

Speaking on Texas First’s decision to go with RentalMan, Fuentes says, “The training and learning curve were a big part of the decision to go with RentalMan. The team had a lot of experience with the system. Knowing it was a leader in rental software and the fact that we could get it up and running quickly with a SaaS environment were key factors as well.”

Texas First is a company that is always on the hunt for the latest and greatest technology to help their rental business and its customers. In 2020, with plans for further expansion, Texas First needed to put RentalMan to the test again. Was this the rental ERP system that they wanted to continue with for the foreseeable future?

This question prompted an RFP process, which pitted RentalMan against other alternatives that the equipment rental software industry had to offer. Meeting after meeting and demo after demo put RentalMan on top.

Fuentes recalled, “Some key things that set RentalMan apart from the rest included the capabilities of the system. Other systems were missing key functions that we needed like accounting or cloud capabilities. RentalMan was the most stable choice for us. The stability of the existing platform and set of new solutions and features really helped it stand out from the rest.”

In 2022, Texas First purchased Rental One. Shortly after, the team started integrating the two companies throughout the beginning of 2023. This acquisition doubled their rental revenue and added 20 additional locations to Texas First’s branch portfolio. It would be the company’s largest growth since its launch in 2015.

Such a large acquisition is no easy task. Texas First went through its fair share of challenges. “The people part is always the challenge,” related Fuentes. “How do you help so many people who are not all in the same place move through the change? Even more challenging is how do you retain them as you go through it? We’ve had some turnover and that’s been hard. I don’t think anyone has that down perfect.”

Fuentes credits the ease in some of this change to the fact that both companies were using RentalMan. She added, “I can say that both sides having RentalMan was a huge piece in minimizing some of the challenges. People’s familiarity with RentalMan really helped. While their title or job might change a little, they knew that there would be some familiarity with what they were doing before. That was a comfort for people.”

Speaking on the integration, she said, “Having to come together to make it happen was a bit of an unexpected bonding experience for both teams. At first, I thought ‘Well, it’s just a system thing; we’ll deal with some of the people stuff later.’ It was a great time to review best practices and adopt different processes that each team did really well in the past.”

Texas First is continuing to expand their technology stack to accommodate all the recent changes in their business. They also continue to look for new ways to incorporate technology that will improve the customer experience. Fuentes states, “Now that there’s some stability around the integration, we’re starting to look into key projects that address the issues that come with 40 locations. In the past, we could get away with manual processes and other things at 20 locations. At 40 locations, that’s not as easy.”

The next era of technology endeavors at Texas First will likely come in the areas of service and transportation. The dramatic shift in company size has really put these areas at the forefront of uncracked potential in their business. She adds, “Some of the things that were ‘nice to haves’ are now becoming essential to run efficiently at scale.”

As they look forward to these new areas of technology integration, RentalMan and the Wynne Systems team will be by their side.