United Rentals Deploys Zilliant Solutions to Enhance Pricing Operations

Sept. 1, 2010
Austin, Texas-based Zilliant, a provider of price optimization and margin management solutions for business-to-business manufacturers, distributors, high-tech, and industrial service companies, this week announced that United Rentals has deployed Zilliant Margin Maximizer and Margin Insight solutions across its integrated network of more than 550 branch rental locations in 48 states and 10 Canadian provinces. United Rentals is also piloting Margin Manager with an expected full roll-out in early 2011.

Austin, Texas-based Zilliant, a provider of price optimization and margin management solutions for business-to-business manufacturers, distributors, high-tech, and industrial service companies, this week announced that United Rentals has deployed Zilliant Margin Maximizer and Margin Insight solutions across its integrated network of more than 550 branch rental locations in 48 states and 10 Canadian provinces. United Rentals is also piloting Margin Manager with an expected full roll-out in early 2011.

“As the market leader, we sought to employ a tool that could offer us a rigorous pricing methodology to support our customer segmentation strategy and increase the effectiveness of our sales force,” said Michael Kneeland, CEO, United Rentals. “We selected Zilliant because the company has demonstrated success with their price segmentation and statistical scientific software technology that specifically addresses the pricing challenges we face every day.”

United Rentals deployed Zilliant Margin Maximizer to improve the quality and accuracy of customer rental rates to maximize return on assets. District and national account managers will leverage Zilliant Margin Manager to gain detailed visibility into the pricing performance of rental agreements and streamline the customer rental experience. Zilliant Margin Insight provides the organization clear visibility into margin and revenue performance across all branches, enabling them to take necessary action to on pricing opportunities quickly. Sales teams in the field also have the ability to access market-based rate guidance directly from mobile devices, ensuring quick and accurate transactions.

Zilliant's Margin Maximizer and Margin Insight price optimization and management solutions are designed to improve all facets of B2B pricing — segmentation, analysis, setting and execution — increasing margins and maximizing profits. Margin Maximizer optimizes prices, reduces risk in the marketplace, minimizes over-discounting in the field, and drives dramatic improvements to operating margins, while its analytics counterpart, Margin Insight, delivers deep visibility into over-discounting patterns, quoting errors, cross-selling opportunities, off-invoice margin erosion, and cost-to-serve variances.

“Partnering with United Rentals reinforces Zilliant’s position as the leading provider of price optimization solutions in the equipment rental space,” said Greg Peters, CEO, Zilliant. “We are excited to work with the largest company of this type in the world, and are pleased to see United Rentals experiencing significant margin lift and greatly improved financial performance because of our technology.”

United Rentals will present an in-depth look at its approach to rate optimization at Zilliant’s Executive Pricing Summit, Sept. 22 in Las Vegas. The free, invitation-only Summit will focus on maximizing margins and minimizing risk during a recovery. To request an invitation, click here.

Headquartered in Greenwich, Conn., United Rentals is No. 1 on the RER 100.