We recently had the opportunity to catch up with United Rentals executive, Chris Hummel, chief marketing officer, to find out what the biggest rental chain in the country sees on the horizon for the market. Following is an excerpt from that discussion.
Rental: What is your outlook for the rental industry in 2019?
Chris Hummel, chief marketing officer, United Rentals: “From our viewpoint, we’re bullish on the industry’s prospects in 2019. We look at the same macro signs everyone does, and our own internal customer confidence index remains positive. The index is built from regular feedback from our network of over 1,200 branches. That’s an important factor that underpins our guidance and our positive outlook. And, as we’ve said in the past, we’re particularly confident in our company’s ability to capitalize on market conditions of any nature.”
Rental Remains Strong Amid Slowing Construction and GDP
Rental: What are the primary factors contributing to this trend?
Hummel: Increasingly, customers across the construction and industrial sectors are facing the challenges of dealing with project complexity, improving productivity, assuring safety and simply getting things done. At United Rentals, we have a role in helping them solve these challenges, solutions, services, and technology as well as helping them see the strategic value of renting equipment. In addition, from our experience, they value taking a more holistic approach to their project solutions. That typically includes some kind of specialty rentals, be it temporary power, fluid transfer, HVAC, and it can also include support services.”
Rental: What's next for United Rentals?
Hummel: “As you know, we’re finalizing the integrations of acquisitions we made in the last year, and that’s a positive dynamic for our business and for our customers. Moreover, we’re seeing strong growth in our specialty businesses, offering customers an expanded and market-leading portfolio of products and services to meet an increasing set of project requirements – like power, HVAC, trench, tools, fluid solutions, safety training, etc. And, importantly, we continue to offer innovative technology tools to help customers better acquire equipment assets and better manage their projects. These are ramping up very nicely, and we expect that to continue.”
Rental: What do you see in your crystal ball for the longer term?
Hummel: “Importantly, we see how technology can help our customers better improve the performance of their worksites, manage their equipment on site, increasing productivity, driving collaboration, and better managing the back office. We use our technology to help our customers work faster and more safely. Innovations include technology that works, connected jobsites, and helping customers adapt best practices from other industries which will drive new opportunities for our customers and for our company. In our experience, customers welcome technology that helps them do their jobs better, to drive productivity and safety, and they’re looking to us to help them with that.”
