RM: Explain this development for us. What does this
expansion of your business interests mean? Why are you doing it and
what do you gain? Bigger market, new or different kinds of
customers, more capabilities and features, broader product offerings
...?
Bonestroo: By becoming a distributor of
RentalResult Budget, it allows Genisys the chance to interact with a
larger profile From Page 100 number of SMEs
(small- to medium-sized enterprises). By selling and installing this
off-the-shelf version of RentalResult, Genisys will empower these
smaller rental organizations with all of the software power and
features currently being used by their larger competitors.
RM: How is this development going to proceed?
Bonestroo: Genisys will continue to sell the
AlphaRental system to companies that have less than 50 users.
However, we will target the 50 to 150 mid-user market with the
RentalResult Budget product. As their American distributor, we will
be responsible for the installation, training and support of the
RentalResult software for this specific market segment.
RM: What exactly are the advantages of the
RentalResult system, especially for larger rental operations? And
what about the Genisys system — different target market, different
functions, different advantages or features? We want to understand
how these two systems complement each other in the market.
Bonestroo: The RentalResult system has been
significantly redeveloped over the past five years — it’s 15 years
old — with the large rental organizations specifically in mind. It
is a rental specialist, full business, enterprise solution. Written
in Java, the RentalResult system employs a user-friendly GUI
[graphical user interface], which offers total security, scalability
and flexibility across the entire rental organization. With its
powerful reporting software, RentalResult gives instant real-time
information to the people who need it. On top of this, the
RentalResult system is capable of running on touch screen monitors
and PDAs, making access to the software fast and convenient to all
levels of the company.
RM: Just a quick follow-up on that — you say there
are quite a few reasons not to go Windows-based. What’s important to
know about that?
Bonestroo: Through being developed in Java, the
RentalResult software allows full scalability and expansion across
practically any architecture, offering substantial cost benefits and
flexibility. The beauty of Java is that the code only needs to be
written once and then can be used across a
multitude of systems. This is not the case with a
Windows-based product.
RM: What was it about Genisys that attracted the
Result Group to form this agreement with you to take on the North
American market?
Bonestroo: The Result Group, who was already
established in the USA with offices in Phoenix, will be specifically
targeting the top U.S. companies directly. However, they realize
that there is a much wider market outside of this group and
therefore they were looking for a company that they felt could serve
the smaller, local markets with a high level of rental expertise.
With our over 10 years of experience of handling accounts of all
sizes including large rental companies such as NationsRent, they saw
that we were capable of operating within this niche and in the
future support them with major accounts.
RM: What kinds of rental users, all told, does
Genisys serve? Or to be more precise, what percentage of your total
revenues comes from equipment rental, tool rental, party rental,
other kinds of rental or non-rental businesses? In other words, what
does your pie graph look like?
Bonestroo: We have always done business with many
different rental industries. I developed a product for video-rental
stores (MovieRENT) in 1986 and the first customer that licensed that
software is still using it to run their multi-store operation today,
almost 20 years later. We had some fairly large video-rental chains
using the software but after the consolidation that has occurred in
that industry the largest customer we have left running MovieRENT
has 25 locations. We also have some large ski- and snowboard- rental
companies, and even some very big ski resorts that use our
AlphaSPORTS product that was developed in 1992. Our largest
ski-rental customer is Mammoth Mountain in California, and they have
over 100 workstations in around 10 locations scattered over various
parts of the mountain. But to answer your question, the majority of
our business — over 80 percent in most years — comes from
construction equipment rental, tool rental and party/special event
rental businesses — 100 percent of our business comes from companies
doing some sort of rentals, sales and service.
RM: When did these dealings with the Result Group
start? How did your two companies get hooked up in the first place?
Bonestroo: They actually selected us to work with
them after being at the ARA show in Atlanta in 2004 and visiting all
of the booths and talking to each of the software vendors that were
there.
RM: So, Genisys is going to do the sales, system
installations and customer support for RentalResult. Are you adding
staff for that, or is the Result Group sending people over to help?
Bonestroo: Genisys will do the sales,
implementation, and customer support for companies that have from 50
to 150 workstations, and we are in the process of hiring additional
staff for this purpose. Initially the Result Group will be providing
some of their people to assist us in this effort. The Result Group
will be doing the sales, implementations and customer support
directly for companies with over 150 workstations, and we hope to
eventually be assisting them with the training and ongoing support
for these larger rental companies that are based in the United
States.
RM: Given the multilingual, multicurrency
capabilities of the RentalResult system, how important is
flexibility like that in the North American market, where languages
and currencies aren’t such an issue? Or, if that capability isn’t so
critical in this business environment, is some aspect of it
adaptable somehow to the needs of rental users in North America?
Bonestroo: I think that the importance and power of
this flexibility is invaluable to the North American market. The
RentalResult system offers an online, multibranch, multi-company,
multilingual, multicurrency solution and delivers real-time,
on-demand reporting. Many major U.S. organizations also work in
Mexico and Canada and Europe. The RentalResult system is built to
handle all the different state taxes as well as worldwide statutory
financial requirements. RentalResult works on the principle that a
successful rental business can adapt RentalResult software to
deliver all their processes and key words, so that staff feel
comfortable from day one, and not force them to change everything to
suit the software.
RM: This development raises some important
questions about the growth of the rental industry and how you see
its future — how vendors like Genisys and the Result Group are
ramping up to meet the expected challenges and opportunities ahead.
Is it a strategic move in that sense? I mean, is that what this
agreement is telling us?
Bonestroo: According to recent statistics published
by the ARA, following the ARA show in Las Vegas, they estimate a
28-percent growth over the next five years in the rental industry,
increasing from $23.8 billion to $30.7 billion. With our joint
venture with Result Group, we feel that it will give us the
capability to deliver the needs of the expanding companies within
the rental industry. RentalResult is focused on delivering great
customer service because the customer is always the key to building
a successful business, not software.
