Hire and Rental News - April/May 2015

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16 HIRE AND RENTAL NEWS • APRIL/MAY 2015
Rouse Analytics, in cooperation with
the American Rental Association (ARA),
launched its benchmark reporting service
in January 2011 with initial participants
United Rentals, Hertz Equipment Rental
Corporation, H&E Equipment Services,
NES Rentals, and Neff Corp.
Over the past three years Rouse Analytics
added 47 rental companies including
Ahern Rentals, Sunstate Equipment,
BlueLine Rental, 27 Caterpillar dealers
and 17 independent rental companies and
heavy equipment dealers.
“We long believed rental companies
needed a way to measure performance
on rental rates and key operating metrics
and we’re proud to have collaborated with
the ARA in their development of the ARA
Rental Market Metrics standard utilised
in our Rental Metrics Benchmark Service,”
Gary McArdle, EVP and COO, Rouse
ARA Rental Benchmark Service surpasses 50 participants
Rouse Analytics added five new rental company participants to its Rental Metrics
Benchmark Service recently and now provides rate and utilisation benchmarking services to
52 equipment rental companies across the US.
Services said.
“The rapid growth of our Rental Metrics
Benchmark Service demonstrates how
valuable this information is to rental
companies and we’re looking forward to
additional growth.”
Chris Wehrman, CEO of ARA said: “We
created the ARA Rental Market Metrics to
improve visibility regarding the importance
of industry standards. We are pleased with
the success Rouse Analytics has had in
implementing the metrics and providing
benchmark information.”
Through its Rental Metrics Benchmark
Service, Rouse Analytics collects invoice
level transaction data and nightly
fleet snapshots from participating
rental companies and reports industry
benchmarks for rental rates, physical
utilisation, dollar utilisation, fleet age,
and other key performance metrics at a
local market level. Participating rental
companies receive a summary level
comparison of their rental rates and other
key performance metrics to local market
benchmarks every month at no charge
and then have the option to purchase
more detailed reporting.
Rouse Analytics’ Rental Metrics
Benchmark Service is a groundbreaking
innovation in business intelligence for the
equipment rental industry. This reporting
tool is the exclusive source for cat-class
level comparisons of rental rates and key
performance metrics. Rouse Analytics
allows equipment rental companies of
all sizes to compare their performance
to peers in their market. Rouse Analytics
has experienced exponential growth,
currently tracking nearly $10 billion per
year in rental revenue.
Visit:
Over 7,500 hours of man time were
devoted to the development of the latest
iteration with Baseplan recruiting the help
of key clients to make sure that the system
was functional and well accepted.
“Engaging clients in R&D is very important
to us. It’s important to them. It is always
our goal to ensure any improvements made
to the product benefit the client. After
all, they are the ones using the system,”
Andrew Ferry, President & CEO said.
The new UI will bring a fresh look to
the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)
offering and provide many of the modern
features commonly found in newer
applications. However, this is much
more than just a visual update. Baseplan,
working closely with its clients, included
many modern features that would take the
system even further in its efficiency. It is
leaner and more accommodating for new
and inexperienced users of the system.
“This new interface for Baseplan
Enterprise is yet another example of
A new look for Baseplan Software
Baseplan looking to take advantage of
emerging technologies and techniques
to benefit the user. We wanted to make
sure this wasn’t just a new look, but most
importantly, were also bringing new and
enhanced features with it,”Andrew said.
Some of the new features include:
• The ability to auto-resize forms for
different monitor dimensions.
• Customised captions.
• The application can be skinned to a
client's preferred colour scheme.
• The option to have multiple forms open
at the one time as opposed to multiple
instances of the application.
• Searchable menu tree that can be
hidden on demand.
• A new home page that can display
internal content from the company
portal.
• All forms to be refactored to use
the new Enterprise grid which has
extensive user customisation options,
grouping options and search features.
• Forms can be ‘popped-out’ and dragged
to a second monitor if required.
Baseplan has a continual improvement
strategy in place. The heavy investment
into R&D will continue across the year
with the business working on additional
interfaces for Vertex and SmartEquip,
while additional functionality for the Sales
Quotes module is currently in the pipeline.
Furthermore, projects are underway for
release later this year which will see
significant enhancements to Baseplan’s
mobility offering.
Contact 02 9875 9666 or visit website:
Baseplan is again expanding its software offering with the development
of a brand new user interface (UI). The new development will not only
make it even easier to use Baseplan Enterprise, but also bring fresh new
features to the solution offering.
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