Cybermotion Rental US is the North American rental division of Netherlands-based Cybermotion, manufacturers of stage motion systems for the entertainment industry. In early 2018, Cybermotion US realized that without a central rental management software, managing their expected growth was going to be a challenge.
The company was using a mix of different tools but soon realized they needed a dedicated all-in-one solution to manage inventory, crew and projects. The company selected Rentman rental management software to streamline operations.
“Since we started providing services here in the US almost nine years ago most of the information about our everyday operations was either in my head or on some scratch pieces of paper” says PJ Visser, operations manager at Cybermotion Rental US. With the growth of their business over the past few years, the company was running with an increasing uncertainty about upcoming jobs, required subrentals and gear availability.
Until February 2018, Cybermotion US was using a variety of tools to manage the business. While these tools helped during one or two shows, managing 6 or 7 overlapping shows and rentals at a time was a real headache.
“I think we were actually quite lucky to realize that we were coming to a point of no return where changes had to be made. I have the impression that in a lot of cases companies in our situation start missing more and more things and only after a while realize that they should get a dedicated solution. But at that time the mismanagement has already happened, which is something that we wanted to prevent.”
Visser started testing rental management software in February 2018 to evaluate if a solution could help him get a better overview of business processes and handle the upcoming growth. An interesting thing he noticed early on was that there seemed to be two very distinct types of rental solutions on the market.
Affordable, smaller software packages were mostly made for camera and broadcast rental businesses. The more extended solutions, with tools for crew and transport management, were generally quite expensive and had a lot of redundant features.
“We landed on Rentman since it was friendly to scale and affordable. It did more than we needed it to do at first, but it was easy to use and we were able to learn with the system over the next few months. When you go from one system to another there is always a long learning curve, but with Rentman I got the feeling that we were flexible to decide how much work it should take over for us.”
After spending two months to implement the software during a busy period, Rentman allowed the company to easily handle the additional business coming their way. Instead of having all the details on paper and in Visser’s head, the whole team now had all the relevant information directly at their fingertips.
Information is now accessible, understandable and manageable for everyone. Visser and his team now see in a project calendar what’s going in the coming weeks, how many shows are out the door and if anything else is coming up. Being able to build an order and quote directly from within Rentman has cut the required work in half.
“My quoting process has gotten a lot easier and faster. Seeing where I am gonna need to start thinking about a lack of equipment is now instantaneous and I can even send a subrental request right from within the software.”
Visser comments that they never had a comprehensive inventory count readily available last year. This is something they can now access in Rentman’s availability timeline. This feature has become invaluable since they can now visualize whenever they are running short on gear and avoid double bookings.
“I think what companies in our industry experience a lot is that you are either extremely busy or you have time to twiddle your thumbs. So what Rentman is helping us with is understanding our situation, but also being ready for the moment when we actually get really busy. In the time where we are a little less busy we can work in the software to improve and prepare for the upcoming year.”
To learn more about Rentman and it’s rental management software visit the link below and sign up for a free 30 day trial today.
