Managing Daily Rental Operations Using STAEDEAN Rental Management in D365

Managing equipment rental operations can be challenging, especially with your fleet moving across multiple geographies and projects.

As an ISV with 19+ years of experience in the rental industry, we have helped multiple global rental businesses transform their operations with our rental-specific software - STAEDEAN Rental Management, embedded in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management.

In this article, we share a scenario that focuses on managing the daily operations of a rental object for a typical equipment rental company.

Disclaimer: All the company and individual names mentioned in this blog are purely fictional.

Profile of the equipment rental company

Let’s assume Eazify Rentals Pvt. Ltd. is an equipment rental company based in Europe that rents out construction equipment. With a global fleet and cross-country projects, they are involved in various rental, sub-rental, and sales activities.

To manage the rental operations in Eazify Rentals Pvt. Ltd., the people involved are:

• Sales Representative – Tom Jones
• Rental Manager – Lisa Jackson
• Rental Clerk – Carlos Alonso
• Warehouse Associate – Alex Parker
• Field Services Engineer – Sarah Malik
• Service and Maintenance Technician – Chris Dunphy
• Management Team – CEO (Jane Ric), CFO (Jin Sato), and COO (Daniel Smith)

The customer company for this scenario is ‘Build Now Projects.’

The operational challenges faced by the rental company

Eazify Rentals Pvt. Ltd. had to maintain years of data using spreadsheets and in-house software, with no consistency in the historical data. Different teams (the planning, servicing, and transport teams) struggled to coordinate using separate communication channels and systems. The operational silos resulted in cumbersome daily processes and delays in scheduling equipment.

Eazify Rentals Pvt. Ltd. found it increasingly challenging to manage their rental fleet as they were:

• Using a manual, labor-intensive process
• Facing communication gaps among different teams
• Delaying deliveries, resulting in dissatisfied customers

The solution

To address all the above challenges, Eazify Rentals Pvt. Ltd. decided to consolidate its operations into a single technology stack. They wanted an end-to-end rental-specific software solution. After evaluating rental solutions in the market, they chose STAEDEAN's rental solution: STAEDEAN Rental Management.

As a cloud-based solution, STAEDEAN Rental Management leverages the full Microsoft technology stack and offers a single source of truth, automating the entire rental lifecycle for Eazify Rentals Pvt. Ltd.

Managing daily rental operations using STAEDEAN Rental Management for Dynamics 365

After implementing STAEDEAN Rental Management, this is how the journey of a rental object became more efficient for every person involved in the lifecycle of the equipment:

Checking on the equipment operational overview

The day at Eazify Rentals Pvt. Ltd. begins with Lisa Jackson, the Rental Manager, logging into the STAEDEAN Rental Management system. She does her quick, daily checks on the equipment overview by reviewing different analytical dashboards in STAEDEAN Rental Management.

The sales overview dashboard offers Lisa insights into the number of new rental customers, the closing rate of contracts, and the total number of rental orders, along with impactful information like average rental price, discount, and order value. Based on these metrics, Lisa kick-starts the daily meeting with the Sales, Service, and Operations teams to discuss updates and improvement possibilities.

Here's a view of the sales overview dashboard Lisa checks every day:
(Click on the image for a full-screen view)

Creating a rental order based on the customer’s request

Tom, the Sales Representative, logs into the STAEDEAN Rental Management system to see a customer, Build Now Projects, requesting a lengthy rental order for a 3-year-long construction project.

Tom instantly views the customer's history and previous purchase orders using STAEDEAN Rental Management for D365 Sales. With this, Tom can get the entire data of the customer's journey, from lead to cash.

Tom customizes the quote and recommends a few other items, as 'frequently rented-together products' to the customer, using the artificial intelligence functionality in STAEDEAN Rental Management.

Build Now Projects is delighted with the quote and accepts the rental agreement.

Now the pieces of equipment – serialized items, sales items, and bulk items must be assigned to Build Now Projects.

Carlos, the Rental Clerk, uses the STAEDEAN Rental Management plan board that provides an overview of all the assets available to do a quick equipment availability check.

He scans through the various depots and assigns the rental objects from the warehouse nearest to the location of Build Now Projects for quick and economical transport. He also adds the expected on-rent and off-rent date/ time to schedule the necessary deliveries, pick-ups, and on-site maintenance in advance.

Here is a view of the STAEDEAN Rental Management plan board for Carlos:

Preparing and delivering the rental equipment to the customer

After the equipment is assigned to the customer, the rental order must be prepared. Alex Parker, the Warehouse Associate, takes care of this along with Chris Dunphy, the Service and Maintenance Technician.

Chris carries out pre-rental maintenance checks to ensure the equipment is safe and optimal for the project. In the warehouse, Alex scans the rental items using ‘STAEDEAN Rental Logistics Scanning’ (a scanning app) to get all the information related to the rental order, based on which the packaging of the rental order is done. Then, Alex delegates an operator and a Field Services Engineer, Sarah Malik, to deliver the rental order to the customer, Build Now Projects.

Sarah utilizes the geo-navigation facilities in the STAEDEAN Rental Mobile Operations to find the best possible route to the client's destination. She delivers the rental order to the client's project site on time and instantly updates the rental order status to 'delivered' in STAEDEAN Rental Management using her mobile device.

After using the rental equipment, the people at Build Now Projects realize they require a contract extension. They request the team at Eazify Rentals Pvt. Ltd. to extend the off-rent date using the STAEDEAN Rental Customer Portal. With this portal, the Build Now Projects team can receive insight into their rented equipment, extend their rental period, and download invoices.

Picking and returning the rental equipment

Upon completing the rental order, Sarah and her team pick up the rental items (serialized and bulk items). They use the mobile app on-site to promptly access work orders related to the rental order, pick up the rental items, and return them to the depot.

Following the equipment return, the Warehouse Associate, Alex, again uses the scanning app to allocate the serial number to each rental project by automatically splitting the line items.

In the depot, Chris, the Service and Maintenance Technician, executes post-return inspections to check the rental equipment for any damages, remainders, lost items, or surplus. The necessary servicing is done to the equipment to prepare it for being rental-ready again.

Invoicing the customer for the rental order

Finally, Carlos, the Rental Clerk, invoices the customer, using the STAEDEAN Rental Management dashboards on cost and project reports, and associates all the relevant costs to the correct rental order. He also checks the IoT reading to check for any overutilization of the equipment and adds it to the invoice.

Here is a view of Carlos’ STAEDEAN Rental Management screen showing the details of each component in the invoice journal line details:

The customer is accurately invoiced with an automated billing process for each rental component, and the rental cycle ends.

Analyzing the metrics on the rental equipment’s utilization

Lisa, the Rental Manager, investigates the analytics dashboards in STAEDEAN Rental Management, to learn how the fleet has performed over the week. She gets strategic, tactical, and operational KPIs of assets across the different rental lifecycle stages.

Some interesting metrics that Lisa can see include new rental customers, maintenance costs, field service response time, customer satisfaction NPS, and assigned fleet vs. requested fleet.

Here’s a look at the on-rent revenue insights in Lisa’s STAEDEAN Rental Management screen:

The Management team, including the CEO, Jane Ric, the CFO, Jin Sato, the COO, Daniel Smith, and the Rental Manager, Lisa, meet using Microsoft's productivity tools (as STAEDEAN Rental Management seamlessly integrates with the Microsoft productivity tools) to understand the overall performance of the rental fleet for the month.

The team examines the detailed analytics reports, which provide insights into asset performance, utilization rates, booking trends, and more. Based on these reports, the team makes calculated predictions about the equipment demand, adjusts the rental rates and pricing, and improves Eazify Rentals Pvt. Ltd.'s strategy, financial planning, and budgeting.

Taking a leaf out of Eazify Rental’s book, wouldn’t you like to optimize your rental operations too?

Curious about how STAEDEAN Rental Management can maximize efficiency for your equipment rental company?

If you want to digitally transform your equipment rental business using technology on a single platform that provides industry-specific processes, STAEDEAN Rental Management is a great choice.

Automating every stage in the rental value chain, the solution offers 150+ standardized business processes and guarantees a future-proof solution.

You can discover how STAEDEAN Rental Management can benefit your business by diving into the solution factsheet below.