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RENTALSOFTWARE
IRN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2015
Software developers are
targeting new sectors in
the rental industry and
are seeking to extend
their reach beyond the big
players.
IRN
reports.
L
arge rental companies – particularly the
market leaders in the US – have been good
early adopters of rental management and
price optimisation software, but now the reach
of this technology is spreading further into the
industry.
“Now companies elsewhere in the world and
smallerbusinessesare lookingat thebenefits,” said
Hossam Zaki, vice president of pricing science at
software developer Zilliant.
The company is launching a new piece of
software specifically targeting smaller rental
companies – MarginMax Ramp, incorporating the
company’s Rational Pricing approach. It has
been designed to improve utilisation and
revenues, and better aligning rates with
market and customer relationship
dynamics.
“There is a niche for small- to
medium-sized rental companies,
and we think the MarginMax Ramp
software is a good stepping stone to
the full MarginMax package, which is
more elaborate and sophisticated” Mr
Zaki said.
“While we were working on previous
rental engagements we
found that a lot of
those smaller companies had discounting pricing
mechanisms embedded in their invoicing that were
not obvious for the sales reps or for the customers.
“Theconcept thatwehadwas tocreate reasonable,
rational, persuasive, transparent and rationale
pricing – bringing out all the possible discounts, and
presenting these upfront, not hidden in invoicing
systems. The idea was also to influence behaviour
– customers would know exactly how much of a
discount theywouldget for renting for longer.”
The company had seen good results including
increasing rental durations and revenues over a
three-month testing phase, involving comparing a
control set of rental companies with a set running
the new software.
Users can tweakparameters offlineandonlygo to
the fieldwith apricing scenario that they arehappy
with. They can also feedback in to the software and
make adjustments as andwhenparameters change.
“The end result is that customers can trust the
price that they’re getting – all the reasons are
available to everybody. I think we are moving the
needle on total guess-work pricing to more data-
driven rationalised science. Many small-to-medium
sized companies don’t have the time or money to
invest in pricing teams on the same scale as the
larger companies, so this software can help them
automate these systems.”
Multiple factors
Meanwhile, Ramco Systems vice president for
enterprise asset management Rajeev Singh said
that rental organisations thrivedonmultiple factors
such as efficient customer service, maximum fleet
utilisation, strategic rental terms, andcost-effective
asset lifecyclemanagement.
“It is a large canvas to work on, and unless
organisations have an integrated and efficient
business process plus real-time visibility
and complete control over the business
performance parameters, it is difficult to
survive, let alone succeed,” he explained.
Ramco’s focus markets are the Asia
Pacific, US and theMiddle East and Africa.
“For 2015, we believe the equipment rental
Industry will continue to grow in all key
markets,”Mr Singh said.
“Rental companies are looking at leveraging
innovation, coupled with features like
mobility, cloud, analytics and location-aware, to
improve visibility across business operations and
Broadening
reach
Hossam Zaki, vice president
of pricing science at software
developer Zilliant
