Intro

Rental Software to Digitize Heavy Equipment Rental Business in Saudi Arabia

The heavy equipment rental industry is flourishing in Saudi Arabia. The key drivers towards the growth in the industry are government let projects. For example, under ‘Vision 2030,’ Saudi aims to build over 555,000 houses, 275,000 hotels, 6.1 million square meters of office space and 4.3 million square meters of retail space in the next 7 years.

In addition, with a surge in the tourism sector of the country, the government aims to enhance its tourism infrastructure to accommodate the massive influx of tourists in cities like Makkah, Madinah, Jeddah and Riyadh.

While numerous heavy equipment rental players are already present in the industry to fulfill the demand, they need a proper solution to streamline their rental operations and gain a competitive edge over other players.

Let’s try to understand how digitizing your rental business can help you gain leverage.

Need for Digital Transformation in the Industry

Due to the sheer amount of complexity in managing rental inventory and need for accuracy in invoicing, payments and reporting, it has become highly risky to manage your rentals manually, i.e, either on paper or even through excel sheets. Read about some key concerns in more depth below:

**Complexity: **Rental operations are inclusive of multiple processes, including reservations, inventory, billing, rental agreements, maintenance, servicing, etc. In addition, rental orders are also very complex. With automation, all these processes can be handled easily.

**Time Consumption: **Manual management consumes a significant amount of time on repetitive tasks such as invoicing, paperwork, internal correspondence and client communication. With an equipment rental software, all this time can be saved and put towards more productive tasks.

Data Accuracy: Imagine manually entering all details of an order into an excel sheet, including item list, quantity, rental dates, delivery address, billing address, payment info, security deposit, etc. With manual entry, there’s a huge scope for error. In contrast, automation can bring in data accuracy almost instantaneously.

**Backup and Security: **Heavy equipment rental orders are very costly and include very important business details. However, personal computers can be easily hacked. Thus, it is important to store them in a high security framework and conduct routine backups.

**Limited Scalability: **Without automation, heavy equipment rental business can only handle a limited number of orders. As they grow, they will eventually need to move towards digital transformation. Moreover, in order to make your business more scalable, rental software also help you launch online stores and marketplaces for operations.

How Rental Software Helps?

Along with helping you overcome the aforementioned challenges, a heavy equipment rental software can help you do much more. It can simplify processes to a level where you can save time for more productive tasks and enjoy a healthy work-life balance.

**Automation: **Rental software can automate the majority of important processes. From taking rental data inputs, invoicing and payments to order management, inventory management, agreement management, eSign, shipping, reporting and correspondence, rental software can automate all these processes.

**Reduce Operational Costs: **With everything automated, you don’t need to hire additional workforce and pay for utilities. Thus, you can immensely cut costs on payroll, utility bills, insurance and transportation.

**Eliminates Manual Errors: **On a rental software, your clients are directly entering order info into your database. This eliminates the chance of manual errors in billing, payments, delivery, accounts management, etc.

**Secures Rental Operations: **Online rental software stores your data in highly secure databases that are invulnerable to nearly all recognized types of cyber attacks. Moreover, you can also create backups and download all data to your computer as well.

**Increase Business Reach: **With an online storefront, your business can benefit from digital marketing and you can target a wider audience, getting you clients from all across Saudi.

Features to Look for in your Equipment Rental Software

We have understood how important it is to have equipment rental software for your heavy equipment rental business. However, not all rental software will have the same features. To get a software that best matches your business requirements, you will need to search the market and select a heavy equipment rental software yourself.

Below is a list of features that you should look for in a heavy equipment rental software.

• **Rental Booking Calendar: **Required to take accurate rental date inputs from clients. It also helps prevent double booking and processes rental dates for invoicing.
• **Agreement Management: **As equipment owner, you might have certain terms and conditions. Look for a software that can help you get those conditions signed online and store the agreement as well.
• **Rental Security Management: **To help you collect and manage rental security deposits online and reimburse any damages from the same.
• **Document Verification: **Very helpful to collect and verify identity proofs, business proofs, licenses, permits, etc. before renting.
• **Request for Quote (RFQ): **For complex equipment orders, contractors and companies often prefer to ask for a custom price quote. The RFQ feature will help take quotation requests online and also share price quotes with clients.
• **Late Cancellation Charges: **If a client cancels the order post processing, it can lead to a loss in terms of order processing charges. To prevent that from happening, you will need a late cancellation fee module.
• **Late Return Charges: **Similar to late cancellations, you will lose opportunity costs in case of late equipment returns. Thus, there should be a module to encourage timely returns and levy late return charges as well.
• **Inventory Management: **Inventory management is one of the most important features required in a rental software. The feature will help you track real-time inventory, equipment returns, custom stock level alerts and provide inventory reports as well.
• **Shipping Management: **Managing shipping and returns is an important requirement on an online rental store. In addition, the rental software will also collect shipping addresses directly from the client.
• **Rental Buffer Period: **After every usage, heavy equipment requires inspection and maintenance. When the equipment is under maintenance, it cannot be added back to the inventory. Thus, the rental buffer period is required to sync the maintenance period with online inventory.
• **Tiered Pricing Options: **Tiered pricing will provide you more flexibility in setting rental pricing. For example, you can set pricing for daily, weekly and monthly rentals.
• **Bulk Order Discounts: **Another alternative to RFQ is providing preset discounts on bulk orders. This will eliminate the need to review and reply to custom quotation requests as well.

Self-Hosted vs SaaS Software

In the modern day world, gone are the days when every software needed to be developed from scratch. Today, we have readymade and templatized rental solutions to create powerful rental platforms. These software can be divided into two categories, which are self–hosted and SaaS.

A self-hosted software simply means that the business owner gets freedom in deciding the hosting server he wants. It can be an in-house server physically located in office premises, or even a third-party hosting service like AWS, Bluehost and HostGator.

On the other hand, the term SaaS itself means ‘Software as a Service’. The software is hosted on the software provider’s very own servers and provided to business owners as a monthly service.

Both self-hosted and SaaS software are good but businesses get more price transparency and access to full features right from the beginning in self-hosted software. This is because businesses get complete control over the hosting server. No matter the situation, the software provider cannot restrict features, listings or user profiles in a self-hosted solution.

Now to get the same value from SaaS software, business owners will need to upgrade their monthly package to the most premium package. Then only they can access full features and get fully scalability in terms of listings, transactions and user profiles. Calculating the monthly recurring costs and upgradation costs, self-hosted equipment rental software are definitely more cost-effective in the long run.

Single Vendor vs Multi-Vendor Operations

In the heavy equipment rental industry, both single vendor and multi-vendor operations are possible. Where in the single vendor business model, you are the only equipment provider, in the multi-vendor model, you can also allow other vendors to sign up on your marketplace platform and rent out equipment.

Why is launching a multi-vendor marketplace more profitable in the heavy equipment rental industry? Due to the high cost of heavy equipment, it is very difficult for a single vendor to have all types of equipment available on rent. Thus, in your online journey, it is wiser to capitalize on the rental inventory of multiple dealers and launch a one-stop destination for sourcing all types of rental equipment.

If in case you are interested in building a rental marketplace for heavy equipment, then you will generate revenue from the following options:

• Rental fee (earned from renting out your own equipment)
• Rental commission (from allowing third-party rentals on your marketplace)
• Vendor registration charges
• Featured listing charges
• Equipment subscription plans
• Display ads

Conclusion

With a strategic digital transformation plan and the right technology to manage your heavy equipment rental business at the backend, there’s immense scope for online revenue generation and growth. By automating key processes, you will be saving on operational costs that you can use to run your online marketplace and build brand value. If interested in making the online shift, YoRent is a highly recommended software. It is self-hosted and supports both single vendor and multi-vendor operations. Lastly, with digital transformation, your team can also enjoy a better work life balance.

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Author bio:
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Abhishek Kataria

Abhishek Kataria is a business consultant who assists entrepreneurs and business owners in developing viable digital touchpoints and marketplaces. Abhishek is curious about exploring and analyzing new business trends and has a keen eye for the latest developments in the eCommerce sector. Connect with him: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhishek-kataria-3510b612b/