Interview: Former Home Depot exec on his new role with BigRentz

BigRentz, a US-based construction procurement software platform, recently appointed former Home Depot chief strategy officer, Matt Schweickert, to its board of directors, a move promising to bring his proven ability to scale global organizations and drive profitability into BigRentz’s digital platform.

For its part, BigRentz aims to further simplify the equipment rental and management process for its 6,000 supplier partners representing 14,000 locations and customers across the country.

Among its many goals, the firm plans to introduce AI-infused software solutions to drive cost savings, break down communication silos and operate across more industry verticals, including staffing and financial services, to address evolving market demands, according to the company.

Schweickert’s career spans over two decades and while at Home Depot, he simultaneously served as CSO, functional CFO for technology and chief product & user experience officer.

Rental Briefing spoke with him to find out what he hopes to achieve in his new role at BigRentz, as well as what’s next for the construction and rental industries as they evolve in the digital age.

RB: How does your background serve your new role at BigRentz?

Matt Schweickert, BigRentz board of directors

Schweickert: My background is in investment banking, and when I joined Home Depot years ago, one of the things we really drilled into was the importance of the “pro” and understanding their business.

To give you the context, 3% of the customers at Home Depot generate 50% of the revenue, and those are the professional contractors. The reality is that 99.99% of all pros rent equipment. A typical morning for one of our best customers in those days would have them coming to Home Depot to get their supplies, etc., and then going across the street to another rental yard and rent their equipment.

For us, the question was always, how do we capture that business from a convenience perspective? How do we get more of that spend from the professionals by helping them complete their projects more efficiently?

RB: How is the professional contractor’s role evolving?

Schweickert: We all know there’s a skilled labor shortage, so anything that increases efficiency for them is valuable.

The construction professional used to be a guy who ran his business out of a pickup truck. But that professional is evolving to adopt more and more digital tools. This is happening in the rental space too.

One of the biggest challenges for the industry is transparency around pricing and availability, those tend to be the biggest pain points for a customer who’s renting equipment.

I’ve been an advocate for the rental space for years, and I’m also passionate about anything that provides additional efficiency and visibility within the construction and project industries. That’s why I was originally attracted to this role with BigRentz.

RB: What’s the next step in the evolution of rental for the end user?

Schweickert: One of the biggest challenges on any project, once you actually find the equipment, get the right price, and get it delivered to the job site, is how to utilize it. How do you get quick training and become productive quickly?

Those are the broader pain points and challenges that we’re trying to address at BigRentz. So, yeah, more to come there.

RB: On a more general level, what do you see as the most critical issues facing rental companies right now, and BigRentz in particular.

Schweickert: There’s always the question around demand - Is there project demand? Is there consumer demand? The good news is we see some great trends ticking back up for the second half of the year, after being a little soft for a short period of time. So I think the demand in the industry will remain solid and strong.

I think the challenges center on the overall fragmentation in the space and the lack of really good digital tools that provide transparency and easy procurement.

The core issues within the industry and what needs to happen to make it more efficient are exactly what BigRentz is working on.

RB: What do you see in your crystal ball for the future?

Schweickert: Usually, construction spend and rental spend are associated with what I’ve historically called “tragedy and dreams.” The tragedy is equipment need based on things like a roof collapse due to a fallen tree. That part of rental consumption will always remain solid.

What’s interesting right now is that the dreams element - like doing a massive renovation in your backyard or putting in a new pool - can get put on hold when money is tight. I do think a lot of those more discretionary dream projects are going to be put on hold for a little bit, but I think the foundation of the demand will remain strong.

With that in mind, there will probably be a little bit of a shift in terms of what sort of equipment is more heavily utilized in the near term. My guess is it will skew more toward compact equipment for smaller projects. Overall, I think it will balance out over time.

RB: What do you hope to achieve at BigRentz?

Schweickert: I really want to focus on the consumer experience; to make sure the guts of the software really work.

The big piece I’m going to be focused on, and I hope I can provide some value on, is putting things in the lens of the professional, the contractor, and what the rental experience looks like for them, now that the back end is all built. That’s really where my experience has been over time, on the technology and its application to make a great user experience.

RB: The industry has changed a lot since you got involved. Do you have any personal feelings about the direction it’s headed?

Schweickert: In a world where mobile procurement, geofencing of an order, is the norm - I can geofence my order at Chick fil A, right? - the adoption of these basic tools are everywhere. If I can go on Amazon and order a swingset and have it delivered the next day, why can’t I have a similar experience in every other interaction?

Traditionally, there has been this unconscious bias in the industry, or maybe it’s a conscious bias, that construction professionals don’t actually want convenience - they want to work off a clipboard, they want to have a bunch of papers scattered on the floor mats of their pickup truck. That’s how they want to run their business. But when you see the adoption of other digital tools - and I call out things like ServiceTitan and Buildertrend, and other tools that are helping professionals - then the need for an equal advancement of technology in rental, hopefully, is better understood and appreciated.

It’s one of those things where adoption builds, and then the whole industry catches up to change along with it. I think we’re right at that point now.

RB: Is there aything else you would like our audience to know about what’s coming from BigRentz?

Schweickert: The team is absolutely focused on improving product development, the core platform. There are some great things coming that utilize current technology, and it’s going to be a huge gain for us.