Leverage the full power of Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM and Sycor.Rental  

Staying competitive in today’s fast-paced market is more important than ever before.  All businesses, and especially equipment rental businesses, must look at systems and process and understand business transactions from internal users’ perspectives as well as their customers’.  A company must be “easy to do business with” and at the same time choose systems, infrastructure, and processes that provide the lowest cost/highest value over the long haul.

That is why many companies are currently rethinking their business systems and processes.  This vital business aspect has seen significant changes in the past 10 years.  Years ago, the decision was to buy software solutions specific to a business’ core/vertical or hire programmers to build a custom solution.  Those days of custom designed systems are gone for good.  Today, the current decision surrounding software solutions is whether a business will remain on-premises or go to the Cloud.  Pricing for subscription software for cloud computing has come down over the past 10 years and today, more than ever, a subscription based, online model may be the lowest total cost of ownership of any option available.

Along with making that decision, most equipment rental companies struggle with whether to get a “departmental/vertical/best of breed” rental solution that is built specifically for their business, OR whether to buy a fully integrated Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP) that has built-in rental and service functionality.  Practically all vertical or best of breed solutions do not have fully integrated accounting or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) functionality.  Years ago, a rental solution built on a true ERP platform from Microsoft, SAP or Oracle, was non-existent.  Businesses were forced to purchase a stand-alone rental application and then had to interface or hard-wire the two systems together.  This caused frustration since costs existed in the operations systems and revenues existed in the accounting system.  Not much fun in attempting to run a business with two versions of the truth.  Many vendors have tried to “bridge” this two-system chasm but there are few true success stories.

Another issue with these best of breed solutions is that most are still built on very old technology.  Even today, in the age of modern ERPs and optimized solutions you can still find some of the major players running old code with a graphical or web front end.  This “lipstick on a pig” approach makes is difficult to leverage new technologies without having to rewrite everything back into the old code.  The result is a less flexible system that has a higher cost to maintain.

Microsoft offers a cloud-based (online) ERP platform that provides a wide range of solutions depending on the size of company and the particular rental industry you are in.  Sycor.Rental offers cloud-based rental, equipment fleet, and dealer management solutions for all different types of equipment-based businesses.  Built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance & Supply Chain Management (D365F&SCM), Sycor Americas cloud rental solution, Sycor.Rental, is scalable across thousands of users, multiple time zones, countries, languages, currencies, and business units.  Utilizing an ERP based rental solution opens many doors to adjoining technologies that are desired for the equipment rental industry as well.  

Some of the adjoining technologies available with MSD365F&SCM and Sycor.Rental include:

·       Graphical Scheduling

·       Mobility for Field Workers

·       Transportation Management

·       Telematics Integration

·       Internet of Things (IoT)

·       Artificial Intelligence (AI)

·       Shipping Integration

·       Integrated Credit Card Processing

·       Document Management

·       Employee Time/Location Management

·       Electronic Signature Capture

·       Wireless Warehouse Management

·       OEM Procurement

·       Retail Rental

·       Integrated Payroll and Human Capital

·       Integrated Sales Tax and Compliance

·       Customer Portals

·       Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ)

The most interesting technology on this list is the merging of telemetry with Artificial Intelligence (AI).  Telematic data is good to determine where a piece of equipment might actually be located and how many hours/miles are on the machine.  What more companies are asking for is the ability to take machine readings (water temp, oil pressure, loading etc.) and combining that with other relevant data.  It might be important to know that the equipment is being used in a saltwater environment.  With many machines, you want to know how many cycles or how much material is being lifted or moved.  The more you know, the more data you can include into your analytics and thus, provide a more complete picture of your equipment operation and inventory.  Results from oil analysis can also help determine the next service interval and when a piece of equipment is ready for overhaul or replacement.  Microsoft Azure IoT Server can take any data from any type of sensor and bring it back to your ERP and Sycor.Rental system for analysis and action.

By leveraging the full power of Microsoft’s powerful ERP solution, properly configured with the needed equipment management functionality of Sycor.Rental, it will provide the lowest overall cost and highest returns for your business.  If looking to cloud computing in your equipment rental business, a Microsoft Dynamics 365-based solution is hard to beat.

- Larry Miller, Sales Consultant at Sycor Americas

Read what our customers say after choosing to implement MSD365F&SCM and Sycor.Rental: CLICK HERE.