Strategies to promote more women and minorities in the rental industry, as well as efforts to engage young professionals, provoked a lively discussion when the Global Rental Alliance (GRA) met recently at The Rental Show in New Orleans.
Technology trends and workforce development issues are priorities for the members, they say. Technology is the one area that cuts across industry segments, geographies and cultures to improve business performance. It’s improved safety, operational efficiency and the customer experience – and will continue to reshape the industry, members agreed at their 16th annual meeting.
The meeting agenda included the latest review of the global survey initiative of the GRA, which estimates fiscal year 2016 combined rental revenue among the GRA associations of nearly $97 billion. That represents a 6-percent increase over 2015 rental revenues, as calculated by IHS Markit on behalf of the group.
Given that those figures are from 2016 – and with many in the rental industry saying they’ve seen positive indicators since then – the latest figures could well be higher once they’re tallied.
The GRA members agreed to start projecting the recent year’s rental revenue and other key figures at their summer meeting and will publish preliminary 2017 figures in August.
Discussion was held among the associations on the economic forecast for their countries through 2018, and it appears that the economies of all GRA members are healthy and that operators expect a very good year, the group says.
