Business Micros introduces rental options on its complete software range

Business Micros is reporting a significant increase in the number of businesses choosing to rent rather than buy its software during 2009. For some, this may simply be further proof of the unwillingness or inability of many businesses to invest in capital projects in the current market, but for Managing Director Graeme Bailey it actually marks the success of a campaign by the industry’s number one software supplier to convince fabricators and installers that software rental now makes both economic and practical sense.

Graeme says: “In this industry, we lease cars, rent premises and hire staff yet there has always been a mindset that we should purchase software and much of the focus of our sales teams has been on calculating payback on investment for customers who need to amortise that investment over a set number of years.

“However, I have long believed that software need not necessarily be viewed in that way and instead could be rented on an ongoing basis at a fixed monthly cost with the payback being calculated from month one rather than month 18 or 24 as is typically the case when software is purchased outright.

“In a way, the recession has brought a great many of our customers to that same conclusion as they have sought to acquire the software they recognise can make their businesses more efficient and more competitive without any major commitment or outlay.”

Business Micros now offers innovative monthly rental schemes on all of its software programmes from the flagship Evolution manufacturing software to the EvoNet business management programme. It is even possible to rent specific modules from any of the programmes so that fabricators and installers only pay for what their business needs at that particular time and then have the option to add new modules as they require.

The rental cost includes set up, commissioning, upgrades and ongoing support so there are no catches and no hidden fees. This, Graeme explains, makes it easy for fabricators to calculate the return on their investment from day one.

He explains: “If a customer uses Evolution for example to manage their order processing function, then they simply set the cost of the rental for that module against the wages of the order processor to calculate the savings. If that same individual is redeployed to more of an internal sales role, then of course the value of the software increases still further since the additional sales generated can also be taken into account.

“There are other less tangible benefits too of course such as the fact that customers who rent software get free upgrades which means they are always using the latest version of the software, and support is also included so if, for example, they want to add a new feature to the software or have any problems when switching PCs, they can simply call or email our in-house support centre and we will provide a solution.”

Graeme adds: “In the current market, businesses simply can’t afford to settle for second best in any area of their business and software is probably more critical than most. If their competitors are offering the manufacturing efficiencies and accuracies delivered by Evolution and the customer relationship manager and automatic delivery schedules from EvoNet, then shouldn’t they be able to respond?

“Previously, they might have been held back from switching software or adding new innovations such as EvoNet because they were put off by the investment involved but that hurdle has now been completely eliminated. For a simple monthly cost, fabricators can not only keep up with their competitors but even better have the opportunity to overtake them.”

Business Micros has just reported its trading figures for the year 2009-09 and has reported a healthy profit – evidence Graeme Bailey believes of the newly discovered appetite within the industry for software rental.

More than 100 new customers have signed up to Business Micros software during the past year, and the number of customers choosing to rent rather than buy has more than doubled.