Italy's E-MAC promotes rental to big contractors

The contractors attended the seminars on 27 and 28 March, with Mr Nicoletti co-hosting the event with Franco de Michelis, secretary general of Italian rental/distributors association Assodimi. Mr Nicoletti is also president of Assodimi.

"The conference was organized to provide innovative ideas to clients in fleet management, with particular reference to rental solutions as a winning strategy", Mr Nicoletti told IRN.

Mr Nicoletti promoted several rental options to its customers. These included NoloTime, under which a client is given a discount if he rents a machine for a full day but only uses it for two hours or less; NoloRic, which gives customers the equivalent of a monthly rental rate for short periods if the contractor pays in advance; and NoloVIP, offering special discounts for customers spending a lot of money on rental.

"It was an important contribution to the development of rental", said Mr Nicoletti, "because we wanted to get closer to customer needs by providing clear solutions; personalized, flexible and in tune with current market demands."

Mr De Michelis said the large numbers of contractors attending the event - two of the seminars were held on a Saturday - indicated the high level of interest in rental in Italy. He added that the seminars were a good sales promotional tool and could be replicated by other rental companies.

E-MAC, based in Vicenza, is one of Italy's larger construction equipment dealers and rental companies, with a large fleet of tower cranes, earthmoving equipment, scaffolding and formwork. It is a dealer for brands including Merlo, Kubota and Terex Comedil.