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Equipment and tool inventory is expensive to acquire and represents an ongoing cost to maintain and update. So a lot of us don’t do it – we make do with the wrong equipment for the specific job and struggle to work around the limitations of our older machinery while newer equipment with new features are out there. On the books, it looks like a win because the cash remained in our bank accounts. In the bigger picture of our companies’ performance over time, we took a hard-to-quantify hit to our productivity in the form of delays, worker frustration and poor quality. And one of these days the repair bill is coming along to hit the books, as well.
Also, rental stores have become a lot more in the last decade or so than just garages where you pick stuff up and drop it off. There’s been consolidation and professionalization in the industry that sees many stores employ in-house experts in various kinds of equipment application. You can get advice on things like generator sizing, compaction levels, trenching best-practices, concrete drying and lift safety – then rent the exact right equipment for the job you are doing.
Don’t take our word for it. Big contractors that can afford to buy all the equipment they want have been turning more and more to rentals over the years, even for equipment they use every day. Their accountants have crunched the numbers and realized that the up-front premium for renting over owning still works out when you put in the costs for lost productivity, maintenance and delivery.
Achille Ettorre is the co-owner of GTA Equipment Rentals and also has an MBA from Ivey. He’ll be at the Contractor Productivity Forum on Oct. 1 to go over the business case for renting v.s owning and talk about how the rental industry has charged to offer more than ever before.
Achille is just one of the great speakers appearing Oct. 1. See here for more information and registration.