In a recent post , we discussed how the downturn in the American economy was leading to a substantive downturn in the $175 Billion corporate meetings market. 

Driven by companies slashing their conference, event and major meetings budget.  Such budgets incur not only event equipment rental and event hire costs, but also travel, accommodation/venue costs.

Surveys indicate that over 60% of all companies intend to reduce their spending on meetings next year.   See earlier  post in this blog – titled Why tough times should benefit the hire and rental industry

One factor that is concerning is why!  Many companies recognize the importance of holding client and staff events and meetings.  However in the current climate, many shareholders and Government Agencies providing stimulus funds perceive such events and meetings as lavish junkets.  Companies and Corporations are “sheepish” about defending the business value, hence opt to cancel them.

Now a coalition of event and meet industry- including event rental and event hire companies, as well as planners and organizers are fighting back.  They have formed a coalition to lobby the USA Government about the benefits of events and meetings to the USA economy and USA Corporate Health.

The “Keep America Meeting“ campaign provides on line information about the business value of the industry.  Furthermore it includes an online petition to be presented to politicians.

This initiative of the event industry is welcomed, and should be seen as a role model for other event and meeting industries is similarly effected countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK.

Making Life Ezy suppliers of the most innovative event and party rental software welcome the coalitions initiative.

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

Cash flow is crucial to the success of every business, especially to hire businesses and rental management companies.

Delayed customer payments can tighten your company’s access to working capital, thereby restricting your capacity for growth. This is the most common discussion topic amongst our customers – payment deferrals by major accounts and long term hires.

We use Ezidebit to manage our cash flow and payments, it has worked brilliantly for us. (please note we have no financial relationship nor related business ownership with Ezidebit.)

Ezidebit provides you with tailored payment solutions to minimise these cash flow concerns and enable your business to grow and prosper into the future. Ezidebit offers a fully automatic collection solution, suitable for regular recurring fees, variable invoiced payments or payment plans.

We have found that with Ezidebit’s direct debit payment system we have gained not only gain greater control but a real reduction in outstanding payments. More importantly we no longer have the emotional and time drain spent in chasing payments.

Ezidebit can have your business set up and signing up customers within a day.

Their contact information is www.ezidebit.com.au , phone 1300 763 256 or email info@ezidebit.com.au

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

So what is the business value of the hire and rental industry?

Well here are five good reasons why companies should hire from you.

Cash flow saving
Companies who elect to hire or rent equipment from you are able protect cash reserves. Rather than spending valuable cash on buying items up front, your clients can effectively defer cash outlays through period payments for the hire or rental items. If timed correctly by your client, their receipts from their customer payments from the project can help fund the on-going rental or hire payment (obviously for medium to long term hires). For those of you who have Corporate clients, hiring or renting is often perfect. Many corporate clients have capital budget constraints during a downturn. Therefore hiring or renting can be an ideal way for some corporate clients to get what they need, as hiring or renting is considered to be an operating budget expenditure. Operating budget expenditures are often delegated substantially down the corporate ladder.

True costing
For many clients hiring or renting actually aids their project costing, in turn aiding them in improving their profitability. Hiring or renting is a known cost. Whereas often supplying the equipment from their own internal assets does not enable them to determine the actual cost of the item. Many don’t know the actual depreciation (replacement) value to be assigned, the actual cost of servicing and storing the item. It may sound trite, but for many companies true costing is a major issue.

Risk reduction
Buying items also increases risk. How long is the item they buy going to be used for? Will it be needed again? Should we buy something that may last for the project duration or something that we can be used again? What happens if the item breaksdown? How long before the manufacturer can get a replacement, this can impact the project and hence cash flow. Hiring and renting eliminates these concerns.

Servicing costs and compliance
Related to the risk element above is the need to ensure that the item is correctly serviced and maintained. Many hire and rental companies, especially in the construction hire and rental, eliminate this concern by providing on-site servicing and service histories. If your hire system doesn’t do this then you really need our HireEzy product.

Minimizing Assets
Assets require maintenance as described above both when in use and when stored. This costs money, in fact in Logistics the average assigned value to store, maintain, insure and account for an item is usually 35% of its cost, depending on the equipment. Furthermore, many listed companies and larger companies use Return on Assets as a performance measure. The more they hold in asset value the greater the revenue they need to generate in order to meet this performance figure. Hence hiring or renting can actually aid them in achieving there performance targets as the hired or rented item is not considered an asset.

For many people these statements above will be blinding statements of the obvious. But are they so blindingly obvious to your customers? Renewing and reminding them of your value proposition is often a good activity in these times. Especially when many of your clients are going to look at the costs they spend with you on hiring and renting. Many of your clients will just see the dollar figure and not reflect on the benefits you provide.

If you are a party rental or party hire company the following article provides more specific how to information on this subject.

Making Life Ezy are the makers of HireEzy the world’s most innovative hire software and rental management software. We are committed to helping our clients grow through the provision of business value, such as the information provided in this blog.

Successful Hire and Rental companies also recognize the importance of other vital relationships such as critical suppliers.

So what is a critical supplier?

A critical supplier is one whose loss to your business or change in business arrangements would have a significant detrimental impact on your service delivery or profitability!

Critical Suppliers can be contractors, service providers, equipment providers or even finance providers.

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Managing Critical Suppliers

If you have such critical suppliers, then the next question is how do you manage these relationships now?  And more importantly how do you manage the Supplier Performance?

Like any great relationship communication is the key – but good communication it must be founded in facts (accurate information)

Information

To effectively manage any business relationship and its related performance, you need information.  What information do you need.  Well imagine you were sitting opposite a major critical supplier trying to save the relationship or negotiate a new deal.

You would want to have at your finger tips:

Basic Contact Information: Including the names and roles, contact details for all relevant people within that supplier?  That is you would want to know who you are dealing with in the company.

Previous Communication: You would want to be able to have reviewed all previous communication between your company and the supplier.  Why, because you want to avoid the “you said” ” he said” discussions.  Being able to show actual records of conversations/ meetings, email exchanges even SMS between your staff and theirs, puts you in control of the discussions.

Relationship Value: Finally you would want to have proof of all financial transactions between the company by period.  Even down to which bookings, when and too whom the supplier services were used, including any feedback from customers. Demonstrating actual performance to any contractual performance agreements is essential in ensuring that the discussions remain objective and hence fruitful.

If you agree that this is the esential information you need, then the next question is – do you have ready access to such information now?  Or do you need to go and find all contracts, ask staff for any emails or notes they have on converstaions with the supplier etc.

If your answers to the above questions gave you cause for concern, then consider installing HireEzy.

HireEzy comes with an inbuilt Supplier Relationship Management system, that:

• Captures all related bookings and financial transactions for that Supplier (Automatically);
• Automatically records all emails or SMS  sent to the supplier from your staff;
• Allows notes from meetings, conversations etc to be entered and date time stamped;
• Enables all contracts and agreements to be store, Agreed discount terms;
• Even only allows you to capture all contact information, inc multiple contacts; and
• Even referrals made by Partners, then result in leads are captured.

HireEzy provides you with one place to capture, store, analyze and review all information you need to manage your supplier relationships.

So if you have critical supplier relationships and you dont have a rental software or hire software solution that assists you, then it may be time to consider HireEzy.  The world’s most innovative rental and hire management solution.

To find out more or too book a demo, go to www.makinglifeezy.com.au

HireEzy is available in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.