OK, you get it. Point of Rental (or even another rental software company) has convinced you that rental software is going to help your business in innumerable ways. Maybe you even already have rental software running your operations today.
Why would you want to switch from a perfectly good on-premise solution that you bought years ago to a cloud-hosted rental software? After all, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Well, even if you’re happy with your current on-premise, server-based software, there are still some pretty compelling reasons to be made for switching to a cloud-based option. Here are a handful of things to consider as you evaluate making a change:
Management
When you’re running your own server, you’re the one updating your software. You’re the one updating your operating systems. You (or an IT contractor or an IT department) are setting up RDPs and VPNs and basically, you’re doing all the work to get your remote employees connected to your server and your data. When you’re cloud-hosted, you hand that responsibility off to your cloud hosting provider and your rental software providers. They already know rental business IT infrastructure and they’re happy to help!
Accessibility
In fact, not only will you not have to set up RDPs and VPNs yourself if you’re cloud-hosted…you simply won’t need them. All your team will need is internet access and login credentials.
Scalability
If you knew the future, you wouldn’t have to bother running a business – you’d already have a fortune from picking stocks or betting on sports. When you’re buying your own server, you need to predict your future needs. If you guess wrong, you’re either stuck with way more server than you need or you’re facing a massive hardware upgrade expense sooner than you’d planned. With a cloud-based system, it’s easy to add or remove capacity – whether it’s more locations or more individual users.
Resiliency
How consistent are you at backing up your software? If your server goes down, how long would it be before you were operational again? If you have multiple locations and your main location lost power, how would that affect your satellite locations? Operating in the cloud means dedicated providers are taking care of your backups. We’re helping prevent and mitigate outages before you even know there’s been one.
Security
We don’t know about other rental software companies, but we’ve got an entire team of security engineers providing 24/7 security. Because we know the requirements rental businesses have, we’re always able to help keep your data secure.
Of course, there are reasons for sticking with what’s working: If you don’t have a reliable internet connection at your one-location rental business? You’re not going to benefit from cloud-based software. If you’re not planning to grow and you’re not wanting new features and you’re happy with your current software…then stick with what you’re enjoying until one of those is no longer true.
But cloud-based rental software brings a lot of additional benefits that will only continue to get more powerful with time, too. You’ll be able to leverage machine learning to suggest additional items and increase your revenue. Our public API will allow you to integrate with additional business tools.
If you’re using Point of Rental’s cloud solutions, you’ll also be able to integrate more easily with Point of Rental’s micro applications, like eCommerce and Point of Rental One, which will continue to grow and add functionality. And of course, hosting your software in the cloud will help with international scalability – everything mentioned earlier about the benefits of scale applies doubly when it comes to translating language and financial data across borders.
In short, cloud-based rental software is going to help you get out of the IT business and allow you to focus on building the best rental operation you can.
If you’re interested in what your rental business might do in the cloud, email [email protected] or fill out a form on our website. If you’re self-hosting Point of Rental, check out Elite Cloud*, which provides a seamless upgrade and migration from Expert or Elite Self-Hosted without losing functionality.
If you’re already using Point of Rental and you’d like to see how your current software can be maximized (and how Elite would handle it), register for our post-ARA Show Annual Training on February 16!
*Our Cloud experts would like you to know that officially, Elite Cloud is a managed cloud system rather than cloud-native software. If you don’t understand what that means, don’t worry, it really won’t make a difference to you as a user. If you do understand what it means, have we mentioned that Point of Rental is hiring and cloud software knowledge + rental knowledge makes you a great candidate?
