By targeting value-add sectors, Ardent Hire boosts productivity while reducing risk
Premier provider of plant services, Ardent Hire, has undergone a strategic transformation over the last 12 months. The company’s latest evolution brings with it technological advancements and more targeted expertise. Chief Executive Officer, Jeremy Fish, joins Construction & Civil Engineering to discuss the strategy and its ambitions. He begins: “In 2024, we sold off our fleet of 2000 excavators, dumpers, rollers and MEWPs to establish ourselves as a specialist rental provider.
“Our mission is to become the leading specialist rental supplier of material handling, lifting equipment, and innovative solutions. We’re dedicated to delivering spectacular customer service and added value at every stage.
“As part of this transition, we closed four depots – leaving us with six mega-depots that comprehensively cover the UK. Essentially, our strategy was to exit sectors which have become increasingly commoditised and where returns have been declining for several years.
“We then adopted a new strategy, focussing on sectors where we can add value to our customers’ businesses by helping them improve productivity, reduce costs, and minimize risk through digitalisation. We also expanded our service offering to deliver improvements in health and safety and AI, for which we’ve seen rising demand.”
The result of this is that today, Ardent Hire is a smaller and more specialised business, that is focused on the delivery of the best service. This is reflected in its net promoter score, which is currently running at an all-time high of 83.4 YTD. “Such high levels of customer satisfaction would not be possible if we had remained a generalist service provider,” notes Jeremy.
The company now boasts an expansive fleet of telehandlers and forklifts, as Jeremy details: “We have 2500 telehandlers, 80 per cent JCB and 20 per cent Manitou. We also have 115 Manitou roto-telehandlers and 200 Fuel-Its, which is our own in-house designed and manufactured smart fuel management system that enables customers to account for every drop of fuel.
“We also provide operators with access to any of our digital tools on a hire basis. Our equipment is supported by a wide range of digital services, including Site Manager, our multi-award winning telematics information system, InSite, which is an online self-service back office system that allows users to manage their hire online from cradle to grave, and The Ardent App, which allows operators to conduct daily checks, report breakdowns, and access key resources such as training videos.”
Investing in equipment
In 2024, Ardent embarked on a major strategic £50 million investment designed to expand the fleet, which is still ongoing. It is adding a range of all-new specialist vehicles and reducing the age of equipment, both of which are attractive prospects to clients. “We are investing in telehandlers and roto-telehandlers, and these are currently being delivered,” notes Jeremy. “As the largest equipment investment the company has made since 2018, it will further reduce the age profile of our vehicles to just over two years and keep our fleet at the cutting edge of technology. Thanks to the success of this strategy, we are expecting to make a similar investment next year.”
This latest chapter for Ardent Hire is also characterised by digital innovation, as Jeremy reveals: “We’re currently gearing up to release a new digital product, which will offer customers a Track My Fitter feature. This will have similar functionality to the Track My Delivery feature that we already offer, but for an extended range of services. We’ll also be creating a central data repository for all documentation – instead of emailing PDFs to customers, which often get filtered out as spam, we’ll send a link to customers so that they can access relevant documents on our server.
“This will include providing high-resolution images of delivery and collection, as well as any damages or detours, so that customers can drill into the detail. Our goal with this new digital service is to provide greater transparency to customers, and it is expected to reduce damage queries and disputes by a significant amount. We’ll also be redesigning all our customer documentation to make it simpler, more consistent, and more user friendly.” 
Passion, pace and performance
Backing the business every step of the way is its dedicated team of plant hire experts. Jeremy discusses how he maintains a strong working culture: “We nurture an ethos of openness and transparency at all levels in our organisation. At its core are the key principles of passion, pace, and performance. Passion stands for our industry, consumers, and colleagues – it describes the way in which we always strive to support one another.
“Pace refers to the way we get things done – quickly without compromising on safety or quality. Finally, performance is all about the results. We’re dedicated to teamwork and mutual respect above all else.”
With its new beginning well underway, Ardent Hire is headed into a new era of success. Looking to the future, Jeremy considers what’s next for the business: “Our priority is always going to be maintaining an outstanding level of customer service. Alongside that, we’ve got some AI initiatives that we’re going to be kicking off very soon.
“In the long term, we’re looking to make Ardent Hire bigger and better. We will continue investing in more rotos, fuel-Its. and telehandlers, as part of our specialisation strategy. Our mission in the coming years is to solidify our presence across the industry, as a specialist provider with a deep understanding of our sector and customer base.
“We’ll continue to prioritize AI adoption and embed it into everything we do. We recognize the value of a data-driven approach, and we’ll continue to utilize digital tools to enhance the consistency and repeatability of our customer experience,” he concludes.