From startup to hirer and equipment dealer

Peter Haddock visits Aaron Walsh founder of Falcon Plant

Having spent over 10 years in the plant hire sector working in various roles at large hirers, Aaron Walsh, Founder of Falcon Plant, decided to go all in and open his own plant hire business in October 2019.

To watch a video with Aaron click here

At the time, Aaron recognised there was a gap in the market, positioning the business near Bristol. Little did he know that just five months later, he would face his biggest ever challenge as the construction sector and the country closed down.

For Aaron, there was no turning back, just a determination to move forward, which today sees his business in good shape for the future especially as he expands his mixed fleet and becomes both an XCMG and Brian James Trailer dealer.

Aaron is also the first CPA member in the UK to adopt a new Rental ERP solution launched recently by Scandinavian specialist Infobric. I recently met Aaron in his yard, which was just being filled up with a delivery of XCMG mini excavators.

Talking about his journey, Aaron said: “It’s been a hell of a ride over the last five years. We have certainly had our ups and downs, but now the business is well established, and we have a great customer base.

“When I first set up the business, we joined the CPA so we could benefit from their help and assistance, and to this day, we use their terms and conditions and regularly get updates from them.

“This really helps the business as customers are reassured when you explain how you are working, and as a small business, you just can’t do all of the research you need and run the business.

“Another decision I made when starting out was to be a fixer for our customers, offering them a one stop shop approach to sourcing what they needed, whether that be machines, welfare units, attachments etc.

“Of course that came with the challenges of keeping up with the paperwork and as we have grown to become a dealer as well as a hirer in 2024, I recognised the need to go digital. So Mellissa Bundy my Operations Manager took on the task of finding a rental ERP system that could help us.”

In mid 2024 Falcon became the UK’s first small rental business to adopt the Infobric solution which is popular throughout Europe, having a large customer base in Scandinavia in particular.

For Melissa, its new digital guru who chose the system, it has already led to a dramatic change in how the business now operates. Demonstrating some of the features, she took me out to the yard to do an equipment inspection on a Kobelco excavator that had just been off hired.

Using an iPad to look at the pictures of the machine loaded up to the system before it was sent out to the customer, she was quick to point out some machine body damage.

“This is typically one of the key areas we need to monitor as we pride ourselves on delivering a good service with well maintained machines.

“Before we started using Infobric, I would have to set up a folder for each rental and put images of the machine into it. We would then have to communicate the damage to the customer through emails.

“This is never an easy thing to do as there is a cost involved in repairing the machine. Now, for every hire, we have a dedicated file in the cloud, which we share with the customer throughout the hire.

“This gives a complete end to end report from order to prep imagery, delivery reports and returns. And all of the information is ordered by the date and time it was entered. This way, everyone has access to the same information and the invoicing is also done through the same system.

“And when it comes to damage reports like this, it’s much easier to show the customer the difference from when we delivered the machine.”

With only a few members of staff, there are lots of jobs Aaron and Melissa, in particular, have to take on. Like most plant hire businesses, each day is different, and there is no such thing as a 9 to 5 in the office.

This is why the most important part of the process was the support for the team to transition all of its information into the system. Here, Dave White from Infobric helped the team to add UK specific information to the system.

To watch a video with Melissa click here

Dave: “The UK market is very plant hire led and one of the key things that we needed to do when bringing Infobric to hirers here was to understand how they want to do business.

“For example, being a CPA member, it was important for Aaron and Melissa to include terms and conditions into electronic paperwork and also to manage the large number of items they were hiring and selling.

“Critically, with Aaron having this one stop shop approach, we were also able to make it very simple to add something new to the product range through our onboarding team at the start and then train them how to do it moving forward.

But being on the road is now not as much of an issue when it comes to taking orders and ensuring machines are being prepped, as Melissa explained.

“As long as I have connectivity, I can park my truck and connect straight into the Infobric system to process a customer order, speeding up the whole hire to delivery process. It’s a game changer for me, but of course, like any new system, it has taken a while to get used to.

“Being the first business of our size in the UK to use Infobric, both myself and Aaron have worked with the onboarding team to add in UK specific elements and work through digitising our previous spreadsheet based system.”

As the business goes through its digital transition I was keen to find out what’s next for Aaron.

“We will definitely be expanding our fleet moving forward, and you will be seeing more XCMG machines joining it as well.  We have had some excellent feedback on the fleet we already have and that’s part of the reason why we became a dealer.  

“When you put the machines together with a Brian James Trailer, it’s a great proposition for the SME’s and owner operators we work with.

“I also think digitising our business will remove a lot of the basic repetitive admin time we have to put into the business. So this will allow us to focus on serving customers and growing the business.”

With big plans for Falcon it’s great to see how Aaron has worked hard to grow and change his business, embracing new opportunities and the transition to digital.