Top 6 Challenges of CIOs in the Equipment Rental Industry and How to Solve Them

Developments in technology and trends mean that your role as a CIO also changes. With the changing business climate and the much more rapid evolution in technology, CIOs must be the technology voice and operational expert of their equipment rental company.

With the increased significance of mobility post the pandemic and the demand to offer quick services, you must keep up with the recent technological trends and developments to avoid your business processes becoming obsolete.

With nearly two decades of experience in the equipment rental and industrial manufacturing industry, we at STAEDEAN have been empowering businesses in the construction, crane, manufacturing, and high-tech areas, by offering a rental software solution, STAEDEAN Rental Management, embedded in Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management.

The evolving role of a Chief Information Officer in the equipment rental industry

Most equipment rental enterprises are running multiple, parallel initiatives on the future state of technology services, ranging from operational efficiencies to adopting next-generation technologies.

In the journey to embrace these innovative technologies, CIOs must consider the potential for cost savings and new monetization opportunities related to offering better customer experiences. The CIO needs to direct the rental company's resources so that all these technology initiatives are seamlessly interwoven and implemented.

As a CIO, you must change your organizational focus from heavy technology investments to value-based technology investments and yield management of technology services. This enables you to deliver your offerings better, be it rental, sub-rental, or project-based rentals, to your target customers.

Top 6 challenges of a CIO in the rental industry and their solutions

Challenge 1: Migration to the cloud

Moving to the cloud is the process of moving a company’s digital assets, services, databases, IT resources, and applications either partially or completely into the cloud. It is great for reducing IT infrastructure costs and you can easily tailor resources according to your business requirements.

With a plethora of cloud service providers out there, it’s essential to know which one would be suitable for your business needs.

Solution: To do cloud migration right, you must assess your current IT ecosystem before knowing which provider to select (Azure, AWS, etc.). Change management and working toward transforming the entire organizational culture and mindset is crucial.

A proper strategy, rigorous planning, and collaboration with an experienced cloud ERP provider could be the first step. Our rental solution, STAEDEAN Rental Management, is a cloud-based solution that leverages all the capabilities of Microsoft Azure.

You can read more about the benefits of migrating to the cloud here.

Challenge 2: Digital transformation

Digital transformation is the incorporation of digital technology into all areas of a business — products, processes, and strategies, changing the way you deliver value to your customers. According to a Gartner study, to become a true digital transformation leader, CIOs must look beyond industry boundaries.

Solution: The easiest way to digitally transform your rental business is to select an end-to-end, low-code software solution that can automate all processes and standardize operations.

While going about your digital transformation journey, you must:

• Collaborate with operations on which rental processes can be automated
• Align with customer experience
• Encourage digital collaboration culture
• Deal and address any internal resistance to change
• Invest in skilled IT professionals that align with your requirements

Challenge 3: Keeping up with modern technologies

As a CIO, it’s not new for you to have continually changing technological trends — data analytics, artificial intelligence, industry 4.0, web 3.0, the list seems endless.

Knowing what is relevant for your business before getting on the bandwagon is crucial. Depending on the industry you are in, your location, and your business model, you can choose to introduce more technology in your rental business.

For instance, industrial manufacturing companies have begun embracing the ‘Equipment-as-a-service’ model to generate recurring revenue streams.

Solution: Choose an ISV that enables easy scale-up and a software solution that has the capabilities to integrate with more solutions. For instance, STAEDEAN Rental Management has valuable pick-and-choose add on solutions to offer the latest innovation and technologies in the equipment rental industry:

• STAEDEAN Analytics for Rental provides strategic, tactical, and operational KPIs of assets across the different rental lifecycle stages
• STAEDEAN Rental Customer Portal provides customers with insights into their rented equipment and equipment usage
• STAEDEAN Rental Management for D365 Sales manages your entire lead-to-cash processes in one location

As a software-focused business, we constantly aim to innovate, allowing the potential for you to scale up and grow with a future-proof solution.

Challenge 4: Adopting a single technology

Depending on the nature of your rental business, you could have different sets of processes in place. You could have the finances managed by a local in-house system, human resources on another portal, scheduling rental orders on another solution, and so on.

Maintaining different solutions to support each process in your business causes communication silos among departments. Not to mention the challenge of maintaining multiple software systems, which could be overwhelming to keep track of.

Solution: Invest in ERP-embedded software that can automate all your processes, standardize operations, and manage workflows.

STAEDEAN Rental Management is an end-to-end solution that handles the entire lifecycle of the rental equipment, making it easy to document and manage a vast scale of rental processes. The end-user training requires less effort, there is a single source of information, and predefined documented business processes to manage operations.

Additionally, you can integrate multiple ERP systems if you have more than one ERP solution in place, with our integration solution.

Challenge 5: Data security

As more rental companies are looking to go 'all digital' with remote work, they must be cognizant of protecting their data against cyberattacks. A report by Microsoft stated online attacks had jumped to about 30,00 a day in the United States of America during the pandemic.

Dealing with high volumes of sensitive information, such as financial records and customer contacts, is part of the equipment rental industry. There is a constant need to assure your customers that their data is secure, which, if compromised, could result in legal issues and reputational damage.

Solution: Look for preventive measures and invest in a software system that offers the highest form of security. For instance, STAEDEAN Rental Management gives you the benefits of dedicated security as it’s built on Azure which has security built-in at every layer of the architecture.

You can increase internal data security by setting up access to information with role-tailored security, which allows easy information flow with the proper filtering. STAEDEAN Rental Management is also continuously updated in line with Microsoft’s release schedule, enabling your software to always run on the latest version and ensuring customer data safety.

Challenge 6: Meeting regulatory compliance

As an equipment rental company, you could be dealing with large enterprises, across the globe, with each country having varying regulations and legislations. This is mandatory for certain equipment rental industries, such as medical device OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and high-tech equipment manufacturers.

Solution: Look for a rental software solution that offers serialization of devices and legislation and localization support. Likewise, STAEDEAN Rental Management offers serialized inventory tracking and advanced project management capabilities with subcontracting and integrated planning, so you can easily document and manage a multitude of business processes, helping you adhere to different regulations.

Additionally, since Microsoft covers compliance for over 43 countries and supports 48 languages, meeting regulations is easier.

Watch this video to see how STAEDEAN Rental Management streamlined rental information and processes for Ainscough, a crane hire company based in the United Kingdom.

What is next for you as a CIO?

Consolidating your technology on a single platform with the potential to manage all your finance, supply chain, and human resource management processes end-to-end could make your life easier.

Implementing a solution like STAEDEAN Rental Management would reduce the hassle of managing multiple systems for different processes and eliminate information silos.

If you are interested in exploring more about STAEDEAN Rental Management, you could review this factsheet which shares:

• The solution features and benefits
• The different industries the solution supports
• The features of each optional add-on solution
• How STAEDEAN Rental Management can help your business