Discovery Health, SA`s leading provider of healthcare and medical aid products and life insurance, recently extended its partnership with RentWorks, the rental solutions provider, in a R14 million desktop deal.
Under its `Sale and Rent Back` product, RentWorks financed all Discovery Health`s new desktop equipment at highly competitive rates, while also acquiring legacy desktops that no longer met Discovery Health`s requirements.
"Discovery Health relies on technology as a key pillar of its business, enabling us to provide our members with the fast, efficient service they demand," explains Patrice Bouic, chief technology officer of Discovery. "While we had made a considerable initial investment in technology, the rapid growth of the organisation coupled with the evolving technology landscape left us with the problem of constantly battling to keep up with its technology requirements, at a significant cost to the business."
RentWorks offered to conduct a full desktop asset audit to provide Discovery with an accurate indication of the benefits of financing the new expenditure under a RentWorks agreement. RentWorks provided Discovery with a comprehensive solution via its `Sale and Rent Back` product. Under this product, RentWorks financed any new desktop equipment required and also acquired legacy desktops that no longer met Discovery Health`s requirements.
RentWorks then restructured a quarterly rental fee for the new and existing desktops, enabling Discovery to spread the payments over 36 months and budget for a fixed quarterly payment. As an additional benefit, RentWorks now also disposes of any desktops that Discovery are replacing, taking this further responsibility away from the IT department.
"Disposing of old desktops is not as simple as one might think as you need to ensure you keep in line with licensing and legal requirements," explains Bouic. "Previously we had needed to employ part-time staff to strip down and reconfigure outdated equipment, a process which takes up unnecessary time and is certainly not core to our business.
"RentWorks purchased all the existing machines that were still appropriate for our use, removing them from our balance sheet entirely. We were able to take out a fully inclusive contract which included financing the older equipment along with the new equipment.
"As a longstanding partner of RentWorks we have become accustomed to regular interaction with our account manager who works with us closely as the agreement continues to evolve. We require new equipment every month and RentWorks is flexible enough to restructure our agreement as often as necessary to meet our needs," concludes Bouic.
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RentWorks provides rental solutions to a global customer base. Established in Australia in 1988, RentWorks provides rental finance solutions directly to large and medium enterprises and through the development of vendor finance programs for technology manufacturers and large resellers. Operating in five countries, RentWorks has developed an extensive suite of flexible rental solutions and has grown to become a leader in the rental finance industry.
In SA, RentWorks has serviced over 400 clients with around R 2.6 billion worth of assets currently under management. Its rental solutions allow customers to redirect their capital towards investment in assets that appreciate rather than assets that drop in value quickly, while at the same time spreading the cost of the rental equipment over its useful life.
For more information on RentWorks, visit http://www.rentworks.co.za/.
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