Rental Center: “Smarter” rents
GTA Equipment Rentals leverages improved processes and artificial intelligence (AI) to increase focus on customer needs.
by Clair Urbain
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| Wess and Achillle Ettorre, co-founders of GTA Equipment Rentals serve the greater Toronto area and at times reach as far away as Niagara Falls. |
The first steps of initiating an equipment rental agreement can be tedious. It first takes attracting the renter to the rental center and understanding their equipment needs. Once the proper equipment is selected, it often requires several steps to capture the correct information that greases the skids for the rest of the steps needed for a successful rental experience.
While GTA Equipment Rental co-founders Achille and Wess Ettorre are bringing artificial intelligence (AI) into the world of equipment rental, they first aim to take out some of the non-value-adding steps in the process as well as take the right steps to anticipate the next steps – and needs – in the customer’s work schedule.
The Ettorre brothers are the sons of Italian immigrants who settled in the Toronto, Ontario area. Since they were 15 years old, both have been involved with equipment rental in one way or another. After attending college, Wess continued his career in equipment rental while Achille further developed his skills in artificial intelligence at Loblaws, a leading national chain grocery chain that serves Canada. Meanwhile, both were on the lookout for opportunities that could break them into the equipment rental world.
“In 2008, Wess called me and said he’d located two skid steer loaders for sale for $10,000 and he wanted to use my credit card to buy them. He asked if I was in or out and told him I was in. That’s how we started GTA Equipment Rentals,” remembers Achille.
Parental concerns
Achille and Wess remember the lively conversations they had with their parents about this bold business move, especially when it was the beginning of the Great Recession. “It led to some interesting conversations with my wife, too; we just had twin boys born at the time. Our father insisted there was something wrong with the logic of buying equipment on a credit card,” Achille says. But Achille and Wess haven’t looked back.
“We started in October 2008 with two machines. We thought, ‘Let’s try this and let’s see what happens. If it doesn’t work, we’ll get our money out of it; we’ll just sell it.’ That one purchase became three, then four, and we just kept going. Here we are, 15 years later with a couple hundred pieces of equipment,” Wess says.
Today, GTA Equipment Rental serves the greater Toronto area and at times reaches as far away as Niagara Falls. “We carry specialized equipment from reliable brands such as Chicago Pneumatic, Bobcat, Toyota, Skyjack and many others, suitable for all types of construction and maintenance projects including concrete work, landscaping, home building and renovation and heavy industrial projects. Our product line includes aerial equipment, air compressors and air tools, compaction rollers, concrete equipment, loaders and dumpers, skid steers, electric tools, heaters and fans, lawn and gardening tools, lighting and generators, forklifts, pumps, scaffolds and more,” says Wess.
They presently operate out of a 1,500-square-foot building situated on a one-acre lot in Oakville, a suburb of Toronto. “We’d like to find a larger location, but we are looking for the right location,” says Wess.
Taking out the busy work
Achille’s training and experience in artificial intelligence is leading the company into using technology to help the company’s eight employees better leverage their time and effort. Although he’s co-managing partner in the business, he also consults on implementing AI technology in other businesses. He’s working on a book, The Digital Advantage, that explores the ethical questions AI presents to those implementing it. “Digital transformation offers immense opportunities for growth and innovation. Yet, it is imperative to approach it with a sense of responsibility and ethical consideration. By doing so, businesses can not only achieve operational excellence but also contribute positively to society and the environment,” Achille says. His book should be published early in 2025.
“We have three pillars of business that we focus on,” explains Achille. “One is people, the second is process and the third is technology. I’ve used what I’ve learned in my corporate career to streamline and automate things here for us so that we can be competitive and take out the mundane tasks and allows us to focus on driving change and growth.”
AI implementation examples
Some examples where GTA Equipment Rentals has implemented AI include:
- Automated hiring process: “We use an automated process from a human resource firm called Bluebelt. We provide a job description as well as some questions pertinent to the position and Bluebelt will scrape Indeed and other employment resources for all applicable resumes. Last time we used this service, it scraped more than 800 resumes and firmed up a list of 20 viable candidates. The AI agent did the actual interview with these 20 candidates, and we interviewed the final three,” says Achille.
- GPS tracking: “Working with Think Solutions, we’ve built a system that allows us to shut off equipment in the field,” says Achille. This system allows GTA staff to disable equipment if payment is stopped or missed. “If we have a non-payment, we send a signal to the equipment that will stop it safely and not allow it to restart. It then sends a message to the person responsible for payment. Generally, it motivates people to settle up on what’s outstanding on the rental contract as opposed to chasing it afterward.” Texada Software is offering this capability with their system, Achille adds.
- Social media marketing: While GTA Equipment Rental doesn’t have an out-of-the-box customer relationship management (CRM) system, it does leverage a data bank that merges like customers and then places ads in certain social platforms.
The way the Ettorre brothers implement AI in their business incorporates their people and processes with technology. “We continually invest in our people – including ourselves – so we all understand the equipment and learn more about the equipment. We work on building our relationships, both internal and external, within our market. With our processes, we continue to refine systems do the heavy lifting in the work,” says Achille. “I would argue that we’re a digital company. We’re essentially automated, but we still have a long way to go. I think there’s a lot of other opportunities that we can leverage. We take on those opportunities one day at a time.”
AI not the magic bullet
“AI is not always the solution; AI is the tool used to solve a problem. Sometimes you don’t need AI. A good set of solid processes typically negates the need for a shiny AI tool. You need to get back to your roots and understand the rental and purchase cycles and what happens at an actual job site,” says Achille.
Achille says the AI tools and streamlined processes allow GTA Equipment Rental staff to spend more time on growth. “I think the investment in automation and AI has greatly reduced mundane tasks and dead time that’s allowed us to invest more to build the business. We’re really focused on growth and driving value within the company, so part of that is the top line on the revenue side and the other part of that is optimizing or minimizing the costs through updated processes. Good systems and AI help us understand how to manage equipment inventory. It’s important to buy inventory for growth, but it’s equally as important to help us understand when to divest of inventory,” he says.
Achille Ettorre will be speaking at the ARA Future of Equipment Rental event January 28, 2025, in Las Vegas.
This article originally appeared in the Januarry-February 2025 issue of Pro Contractor Rentals magazine. ©2025 Urbain Communications LLC.
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