A new 5 year forecast of equipment rental industry revenue was just released from the American Rental Association. They expect the US rental revenue to grow to $48.9B by the end of the year, and grow to $56B in 2020.
That’s great news for rental businesses and for your business. But it might also be a signal for you to fine tune your organization, process and inventory to handle the increased demand.
One area to look at this coming year is how you are managing adding services to your simple rental process. As equipment becomes more complex customers might need more than a simple drop off and pick up. New equipment might require a certified operator to run the equipment that the job site doesn’t have. There might be labor needed for more complex installations, maintenance or inspections. While moving to a full service rental shop if good for business and driving revenue, it might be a challenge on the back office. Make sure your rental software supports both the rental of equipment and associated labor.
Another area to fine tune is your inventory. Do you have the right equipment in the right location? Now it the time to do a full inventory of what you have where and how much it is used. Measuring time and dollar utilization is key to making sure you are maximizing your return on investment. Large companies would benefit from systems that help consolidate individual stores, districts and region’s needs into a global company view. Combining granular requests helps overall budgeting and allocation to help your business prepare for future growth.
A third area to inspect is your processes for everyday transactions. Now it the time to make sure your processes are automated. It is a good time to automate your point of sale processes, your inventory management processes, maintenance and more. Your processes should be backed up by a robust ERP which will automate your individual businesses ‘secret sauce’.
What are you planning to grow your company to meet increased rental demands? Drop us a line on what you are planning and maybe we can help automate it!
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