{"id":57504,"date":"2023-03-02T14:58:44","date_gmt":"2023-03-02T14:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/por-development.local\/?p=57504"},"modified":"2023-03-02T14:58:45","modified_gmt":"2023-03-02T14:58:45","slug":"the-future-of-rental-looking-ahead-from-a-por-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.point-of-rental.com\/au\/the-future-of-rental-looking-ahead-from-a-por-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future of Rental: Looking Ahead from a POR Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

The future of rental can look different depending on who you ask. Since Point of Rental is always focused on building software that will support rental businesses of the future, we asked CEO Wayne Harris: What\u2019s important now and in the near future, and what are we doing to help rental businesses handle those challenges?<\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to hear his full answers, watch the recorded webinar here<\/a>. We\u2019ll paraphrase parts of the Q&A below:<\/p>\n

Q: So what\u2019s happening in the next five years or so with the rental industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wayne:<\/strong> The rental industry in many ways mimics the retail industry. If you want to see what the rental environment\u2019s gonna look like in five years, just look what\u2019s happening to the retail environment.<\/p>\n

If you say \u2018I\u2019m going to order something,\u2019 that means you\u2019re going to pick up your phone and you\u2019re just going to order from Amazon. You don\u2019t pay for shipping anymore; shipping is free. Social media is a place where you can connect businesses and consumers. Amazon has opened stores that don\u2019t have any front-facing employees. Business is being done 24\/7, whenever it\u2019s most convenient for the consumer, and there\u2019s less of an expectation of face-to-face interaction.<\/p>\n

Q: That sounds like a pretty big change; I know people in this industry really pride themselves on that in-person customer experience. How are we helping support the future of the rental industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wayne:<\/strong> Well, we\u2019ve been seeing this move toward \u201cmobile-first\u201d for about a decade now, and it\u2019s only getting easier to see the value of it. The computer that\u2019s in somebody\u2019s pocket is hundreds or maybe thousands of times more powerful than the mini-mainframes that we were selling when I started with Point of Rental 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s one aspect. And kind of connected to that, when we talk mobile-first, it\u2019s not just your employees, it\u2019s customers as well. E-commerce is just huge; once upon a time we had to convince people they needed a web presence and now\u2026well, now we have a team that\u2019s entirely focused on e-commerce at Point of Rental.<\/p>\n

On the back end, the cloud gives people access to their data anywhere at any time. Rental Essentials has been cloud-native since we added it in 2014. We\u2019re talking Elite into the cloud as well, which will give rental stores all the functionality they expect from our software in a cloud experience that provides the benefits the cloud brings, particularly with integrations, data management, and more.<\/p>\n

Q: Let\u2019s start in with talking about mobile functionality; what are you excited about with POR One?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wayne:<\/strong> We\u2019ve been doing quite a bit of work on our development teams. We also have a mobile team that\u2019s dedicated entirely to mobile. What they\u2019ve done is create a platform that, as customers see it, it\u2019s POR One, but it\u2019s so much more than that. We\u2019ve pulled together a global API that allows POR One to connect with all of our rental management systems.<\/p>\n

So now, instead of having one person working on mobile functionality for Essentials, a couple of people working on it in Elite, more working on it in Syrinx\u2026we\u2019re able to bring everyone together and develop and implement features more efficiently.<\/p>\n

Our team, for mobile alone, is bigger than 75% of our competitors\u2019 entire development teams. That allows us to add features and make all of our RMSes more valuable. The GAPI makes it so information is available in realtime on mobile devices. Another thing we\u2019ve added is offline capabilities; I\u2019m from Oklahoma and I can tell you exactly where all the dead spots are in coverage from here to there. That\u2019s what the real world is like; our mobile team is focusing on providing the features that handle those real-world problems.<\/p>\n

Ed. Note: POR One has also recently introduced workflows, which are built around the processes each member of your team uses in their role – there are driver workflows, maintenance workflows, will call workflows, and inventory management workflows available now with more in the works.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: But customers want to be able to have better access and communication with your business through their devices as well; what are we doing to help companies there?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wayne:<\/strong> When I think about web presence, I think of four levels. One, they just have a landing page. It says \u201cI\u2019m Wayne\u2019s Wagon Rental,\u2019 here\u2019s my hours, here\u2019s my location; call this number.\u201d Level two would be where you list your items, specifications, pictures, and maybe prices. Level three is where you actually have an e-commerce site, you actually have a shopping cart where you can get prices and select dates and pay for it. Level four is all the above, plus you have a consumer portal interactive site so the consumer can see all their interactions and documents within the company, as well as contact the company.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where you\u2019re really allowing customers to connect with you when they want to connect with you.<\/p>\n

About two years ago, we acquired a company called Rental Hosting. Any time you acquire a company, it takes time to merge teams and get everything aligned; now they\u2019re a big part of our e-commerce team. We\u2019re about to release the new form of our consumer portal, which is built on the GAPI, which will allow customers of our customers to access their realtime information. It allows for payments that\u2019ll be accepted and reflected in realtime as well.<\/p>\n

Q: If I\u2019m running a rental business, why would I want to move my software to the cloud?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wayne:<\/strong> Rental companies are in business to rent stuff. A lot of times when you host your own server, you\u2019re spending time updating the server, updating the router, putting in security patches, keeping the software updated, making sure everything\u2019s working together, etc. All those things add up to time, energy, emotional expense focused on something that they don\u2019t want to be focusing on. They\u2019d rather focus their energy on moving their business forward.<\/p>\n

At Point of Rental, we have about 20 people on our team who are dedicated to ensuring all that stuff is getting taken care of. That\u2019s the business we\u2019re in! We have professionals with decades of experience doing exactly this. For economies of scale, it\u2019s a heck of a lot better to put that burden on us.<\/p>\n

It really allows companies to focus on what they want to do.<\/p>\n

Q: I\u2019ve heard some great reviews from a few people about our new business consultants. Can you tell me a little bit about that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wayne:<\/strong> First, we definitely want to highlight that this isn\u2019t training. Consulting really is about how to make your business more efficient and help that bottom line. I was pretty excited at the ARA Show that we talked to 2-3 people that have recently sold to national chains and those people are kinda figuring out what they want to do. And I said, \u201cI have a great opportunity for you!\u201d<\/p>\n

So we\u2019re looking to build that team out with people that can really have an impact on the industry and help people have better rental companies and better businesses in general.<\/p>\n

In summary, the future of rental looks a lot like the retail of today: Online, ever-present, customer-focused, and in the cloud. And Point of Rental continues to be focused on building the tools rental companies will need to meet their customers there. If you’d like to start using tomorrow’s rental technology today, email us at sales@pointofrental.com<\/a>. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The future of rental can look different depending on who you ask. Since Point of Rental is always focused on building software that will support rental businesses of the future, we asked CEO Wayne Harris: What\u2019s important now and in the near future, and what are we doing to help rental businesses handle those challenges? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":57497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rental-industry-au"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t