Michael Chen, VP of Operations at a global equipment rental company, connects with his counterpart Jennifer Santos from another international rental firm at an industry conference in Singapore.
The Conference Encounter
Jennifer Santos: Michael, I hear your company completely turned around its operations last year. What happened?
Michael Chen: Jennifer, we were hemorrhaging money on missed orders. Operating across 50+ countries with no visibility—it was chaos. Now we have complete control.
Jennifer Santos: That sounds familiar. We're struggling with the same thing. Our legacy rental software gives us almost nothing useful across regions.
Michael Chen: That was exactly our problem. Depot managers in Singapore couldn't see what was happening in London. London couldn't coordinate with Los Angeles. Orders were falling through the cracks.
The Breaking Point
Jennifer Santos: How bad did it get?
Michael Chen: Bad enough that we had a major corporate client threaten to leave. Missed deliveries, handover failures, delays that made us look incompetent. And leadership couldn't even answer basic questions—how many orders are at risk today? Which depots are bottlenecked?
Jennifer Santos: We're in a similar situation. I spend half my week on calls trying to piece together what's happening across our locations.
Michael Chen: That was my life. Manual coordination across time zones, spreadsheets that were outdated the moment they were created. We were firefighting constantly instead of preventing problems.
Jennifer Santos: What changed?
Finding the Solution
Michael Chen: We built a real-time operations dashboard with Big0. Not just a reporting tool—an actual command center that unified visibility across every location.
Jennifer Santos: Custom built? Not an off-the-shelf solution?
Michael Chen: We tried off-the-shelf. Nothing could handle our specific workflow—50+ countries, multiple time zones, integration with a legacy rental system that had almost no API documentation. Big0 built something that actually fit how we operate.
Jennifer Santos: How did they handle the legacy system integration?
Michael Chen: That impressed me. Our vendor provided minimal support, barely any documentation. Big0's engineers figured it out anyway, built custom connectors, got data flowing in real-time despite all the obstacles.
The Dashboard Features
Jennifer Santos: Walk me through what you actually see now.
Michael Chen: Single view of every order's status—from initial request through delivery and return. Interactive Kanban boards showing exactly where each order sits in the lifecycle. Intelligent alerts flagging stuck orders before they become problems.
Jennifer Santos: Before they become problems—that's the key.
Michael Chen: Exactly. We went from reactive to proactive. The system triggers notifications based on order complexity, client tier, depot capacity. SMS and email alerts go out 24, 12, and 2 hours before scheduled handovers.
Jennifer Santos: What about cross-location visibility? That's our biggest gap.
Michael Chen: Global order heat map showing at-risk orders across all time zones. Color-coded by severity. When a Singapore order needs equipment from Australia, both depots see real-time availability, reservation status, logistics timelines. No more double-booking disasters.
The Implementation
Jennifer Santos: How long did implementation take?
Michael Chen: Twelve weeks, phased approach. We started with three pilot depots—Singapore, London, LA—representing about 40% of our volume. Validated everything worked before rolling out globally.
Jennifer Santos: Change management must have been challenging with depot managers across so many regions.
Michael Chen: We did live webinars, regional training sessions, 24/7 support channel. The key was showing depot managers how it made their lives easier, not just adding another system to check.
Jennifer Santos: And they adopted it?
Michael Chen: Once they saw they could resolve issues in minutes instead of hours, adoption wasn't a problem. The platform actually reduced their manual coordination time by 15 hours per week.
The Results
Jennifer Santos: What's the actual impact you've measured?
Michael Chen: Missed orders down 78%—that translated to $2.3 million in recovered revenue from contracts we would have lost. Client satisfaction scores went from NPS 32 to NPS 61.
Jennifer Santos: Those are significant numbers.
Michael Chen: The automated alerts alone let us resolve 85% of potential delays before clients were even impacted. That's what changed our reputation.
Jennifer Santos: And the operational efficiency?
Michael Chen: We integrated 12 additional depots last year without increasing operational headcount. The platform scales with us. Leadership now demos our real-time visibility during RFPs—it's become a competitive advantage.
The Bigger Picture
Jennifer Santos: What surprised you most about the transformation?
Michael Chen: How much we didn't know before. Once we had visibility, we discovered patterns we'd missed for years. Depot capacity issues, handover timing problems, equipment allocation inefficiencies. The dashboard didn't just show us current status—it revealed systemic issues we could fix.
Jennifer Santos: That kind of insight changes strategic planning.
Michael Chen: Completely. We make decisions based on real data now. Resource allocation, expansion planning, staffing decisions—all informed by actual patterns across our global operations.
Jennifer Santos: Michael, I think I need to have a serious conversation internally about this. Can you connect me with Big0?
Michael Chen: Absolutely. They'll do an assessment of your specific situation—your legacy systems, your workflows, your pain points. The initial consultation doesn't cost anything, and they won't try to sell you capabilities you don't need.
Jennifer Santos: That's what I need—a partner who understands that every operation is different.
Michael Chen: That's exactly what they provided. They built something for how we actually work, not how some generic software thinks we should work.
Jennifer Santos: Thank you for being so open about your journey. This gives me a roadmap for what's possible.
Michael Chen: Jennifer, the rental industry is small enough that we all benefit when operations improve. Better service raises the bar for everyone. Let's talk more over dinner—I can share details on the implementation challenges we faced and how we overcame them.