The Background

• Ainscough is a mobile crane rental supplier; on a rental or “contract lift” basis.
• Ainscough Crane Hire purchased rentalresult software in 1996 when it was a $26m regional crane rental company operating 200 cranes from 11 depots.
  
• Unique to Ainscough Crane Hire is its National Hire Centre - a centre of excellence taking orders from key accounts, for delivery throughout the UK.
  
• In 2003, Ainscough featured at Number 60 in the Sunday Times Profit Track 100. Profit Track ranks Britain's fastest-growing companies by profit growth over their last 3 years.
• Operating 540 cranes and 50,000 assets from 30 branches nationwide.
• In 2005, Ainscough featured at Number 64 in the Sunday Times Profit Track 100
• Ainscough Crane Hire was bought out by the integrated finance arm of Bank of Scotland in October 2007
• By 2007 Ainscough had a turnover of $260m and 25% market share, operating 550 cranes and 50,000 assets from 24 branches nationwide.

Acquisition History

• 1992/3 - Businesses in Newcastle & Central Scotland
• 1995 - Businesses in Coventry, Bristol, Maidstone
• 1998 - Peterhead Group business in Immingham
• 2000 - Assets and business of Grayston White & Sparrow
• 2002 - Assets and business of Baldwin Industrial Services
• 2007 - Nationwide Crane Hire

Business Drivers

Prior to installing rentalresult, Ainscough had a basic centralised invoicing and accounting system providing adequate financials but no management information by which to run and enhance the business. In selecting rentalresult, Ainscough conducted a full market survey in search of a system and supplier that would provide:-

Ainscough Crane Hire Business Drivers

Implementing the rentalresult modules over time has provided critical advantage based on a
solid, stable foundation and enabled Ainscough to absorb and integrate acquisitions;
specifically Grayston White and Sparrow and Baldwin Industrial Services – two businesses of a similar size and scale to Ainscough - at the time of acquisition.

Deploying the rentalresult Software

Ainscough sought to implement rentalresult in a manner believed best to take control of the
business, drive business performance forward and at the same time generate differentiation between itself and its competitors

1997

• Rental desk (contract entry), invoicing and financial accounts.
• Develop reporting on asset (crane) performance.

1998

• Set up customer pricing and invoicing on line for improved control.
  
• Implement sales and marketing module, i.e. CRM.
• Develop customer revenue / activity and profitability reporting.

1999

• Set up the National Hire Centre – Ainscough’s centre of excellence taking orders from key accounts.
• Install and develop workshop servicing and purchase order modules.

2000

• Partner with rentalresult the development of the first real e-commerce rental system in Europe. rentalresult’s new Java-based rentalresult application installed at Head Office.

2001/2

• Consolidation of systems during major acquisition phase. Conversion of key systems to Java development technology.

2002/3

• Roll-out of rentalresult’s Java-based solution to all branches.

2008

• Upgrade to latest rentalresult Java software

Return on Investment

• Asset utilization to drive physical and financial returns.
• Asset costs and revenues to measure asset ROCE and drive asset mix.
• Customer activity and revenue mix to measure customer profitability and pricing objectives.
  
• Management of insurance revenues (0% to 2½% of total revenue - $3.6m p.a.)
  
• Increased efficiencies / reduced staffing in branches and at Head Office.
  
• Customized invoicing styles to meet client demands.
  
• Greatly enhanced ability to grow both organically and by acquisition.
• How has Ainscough achieved and maintained customer advantage?
• Stable business administration, management and information infrastructure.
• Reporting on assets, customers and related profitability.
• Real time e-commerce transaction capability and “fast-track” advanced order entry.
• Record keeping capability in terms of critical health and safety issues – crane and tackle certification; operator training etc.
• Customer extranet reporting / access facility.
• Business intelligence reporting capability across the whole database.

Relationship with Result Group

The core strengths of the rentalresult application are the stability of its infrastructure and its
extensive, powerful range of applications covering all business system needs.

Result Group’s people deliver. They have supported and partnered Ainscough through all developments, both practical and strategic, and played an enormously valuable part in assisting Ainscough to get to its market leadership position.