January 30, 2024
The exact number of companies that offer equipment and event rental-specific software changes as companies enter and exit the market, but today there are more than 30 companies to choose from.
To help readers navigate through the variety of options when it comes to equipment and event rental-specific software, Rental Management is producing this Rental Software Series, which will provide profiles of software suppliers on a regular basis. This month, we profile MCS Rental Software, Birmingham, Ala., and Maidenhead, UK.
Company name: MCS Rental Software
Company locations: Birmingham, Ala.; Maidenhead, UK; and additional locations in France, Scandinavia, Germany, Netherlands, Australia, South Africa and Spain
Number of employees: 80
Year the company was founded: 1983
Founder: Richard van der Knaap
Current software products available: MCS Rental Software
Target customers: Rental companies
What makes your product “rental-specific”?: “Designed specifically for rental, MCS Rental Software features unique functionality to manage the process of equipment leaving, coming back and being entered into the workshop for maintenance or pre-rental prep, then all the way to raising invoices for work being completed based on rental term, actual usage based on telematics, driver hours and more. MCS Rental Software has been developed for more than 40 years through feedback from the rental industry and trade associations, as well as current users who give development suggestions which can then be voted on to be incorporated into new software release versions,” says Josh Lewis, president, MCS.
How does your product make a rental company more efficient?: “Digitalizing the rental process gains renters hours of time back across the entire business, whether that’s less re-keying of data into disparate systems, cross-renting less frequently due to better forecasting, or even utilizing predictive maintenance to ensure rental equipment is running at peak performance whilst out on contract to minimize breakdowns and engineer trips to site,” Lewis says.
Why should a rental company choose your software?: “MCS Rental Software values its customers and their opinions and is proud to have a 93 percent satisfaction rate amongst its users. With its unique User Group and Collaboration channel, MCS users are able to contribute development ideas to shape the future of the product to ensure that it is always providing exactly the support and technology that the rental industry needs. MCS Rental Software also is tailored to suit the individual needs and processes of every rental business. With customizable features and flexible workflows, MCS is suitable for all types of rental businesses. It also is a product that can be upscaled or downscaled depending of business requirements, so when you grow, your software solution can grow with you too,” Lewis says.
What is your most-used new feature available with your software package?: “The MCS Mobile App has been extensively taken up by users with new functionalities including digital signatures, site photos, GPS coordinates, what3words functionality and more,” Lewis says.
Currently, how many rental companies use your software?: More than 500 rental companies use MCS Rental Software daily, according to Lewis.
What percentage of your total customers are equipment and event rental companies?: 95 percent, according to Lewis.
What do you think is next for rental-specific software?: “As the technology industry continues to evolve, it will offer more and more potential for rental companies to further digitalize and enhance their rental operations. We expect artificial intelligence (AI) to soon be able to anticipate maintenance requirements, evaluate risk, calculate profitability of customers and more. Data will be able to be viewed and interpreted in little to no time at all. Ultimately the future of rental software is all about proactive rental and using technology to make that possible,” Lewis says.
View the Rental Management Software Series library
Rental Management will profile a rental software company in each issue. This profile will include basic information about the company, a written article and a video. Click here to view the entire Software Series library of articles and videos as they are published. The videos are also available on Rental Management‘s YouTube channel, which you can find by clicking here.
ARA Rental Software Reviews available to ARA members
The American Rental Association (ARA) has created ARA Rental Software Reviews, an online tool available exclusively to ARA members via ARArental.org.
Members can access the tool by clicking here.
The tool is generated from an ongoing survey of ARA members, which asked members to rate their current rental software system as well as the importance of common rental-specific software features.
The tool includes survey results detailing features ARA members are using, features ranked by importance, market share according to reviews, software comparisons, software reviews and software feature comparisons.
Reports also can be filtered by industry segment and by the size of rental company.
