August 23, 2023
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 Orion Software, Montréal.
Company name: Orion Software
Company location: Montréal
Number of employees: 21
Year the company was founded: 1999
Founder: André Gilbert
Current software products available: Sirius enterprise
Target customers: Rental, distribution and construction companies of all sizes.
What makes your product “rental-specific”?: “Our solutions are designed to maximize the utilization of assets. We are passionate about providing solutions that improve visibility of asset utilization along with effective tools to operate the complex logistics of renting equipment,” says Patrice Boivin, president and CEO, Orion Software.
How does your product make a rental company more efficient?: “We offer simple solutions to manage equipment availability, the complexity of the logistics, and proactive alerts to plan ahead of time the delivery, maintenance, sub-rental and return of equipment,” Boivin says.
What is your most-used new feature available with your software package?: “It’s our rental portal. Because it’s fully integrated with our main rental solution, the rental portal can be deployed easily after GoLive. It’s a portal that can replace a complete website. So, whether you’re managing a small or a large rental operation, the portal offers a readily available solution to provide online access to equipment inventory. In today’s world, every rental company wants a transactional portal, but they see it as a complex process, and they fear to have to manage a second system that they don’t control. With our portal it’s not a problem because it’s integrated and very easy to deploy and manage,” Boivin says.
What percentage of your total customers are equipment and event rental companies?: “It varies over the years. Rental companies still represent more than 70 percent of our customers,” Boivin says.
Why should a rental company choose your software?: “Because the profitability of equipment depends greatly on utilization of equipment and speed to respond to customers’ requests. That’s the advantage with our solution. Users are always in control of the equipment turnaround process. They can act quickly to resolve conflicts and get equipment back on rent to increase days utilization. In a period of growth, it’s essential to use tools designed to provide a quick view of availability,” Boivin 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.
