Careers at Enterprise Holdings

Mission

Enterprise Holdings offers car rental services, truck rental services, airport travels and car sharing services across the globe.

The company works in conjunction with three main subsidiaries which are Enterprise Rent-a-car, National rent-a-car and Alamo in delivering its services.

History

The company was established in February 1957 as “Executive Leasing” by Jack Taylor. Jack saw a market gap where people wanted rental cars within their neighborhood and he thus capitalized on this starting out with a fleet of seven cars and one employee.

By 1962, a good number of customers needed to rent a car while theirs were being repaired and thus Executive Leasing Co. added rent a car business division which had a fleet of 17 cars. Around this time the company also started a car sales division which was responsible for selling the used rental cars.

In 1969, Executive Leasing Co. needed to expand from St. Louis, Missouri where it was based and is still based to date. However, one main challenge was that Jack could not use the name “executive” in some markets and so he re-christened the company to Enterprise Leasing Company. This was in honor of the WWII USS Enterprise aircraft carrier on which Jack served.

By 1970 while the rest of the car rental industry was competing on airport travels, Enterprise Leasing Co. took its services to the neighborhoods.

The target markets were the hometown renters as opposed to tourists and other kinds of travelers that the competition mainly focused on.

This proved to be a brilliant business strategy that defined the company’s business model to date. Enterprise was offering car rental services in places where people live and work, thus satisfying a very large market deficiency that was overlooked by other players in the industry.

Innovation has always been the key to Enterprise’ success, and in 1974 the company introduced a program where it offered free rides to its offices for customers.

It is this same program that has morphed to the popular “We’ll pick you up” tradition that is synonymous with Enterprise.

Jack Taylor’s founding philosophy was “Take care of your customers and employees first, and profits will follow later” thus, from the beginning the company’s main focus has been on excellent customer service delivery.

Good customer relations and customer care services enabled the company to grow rapidly all over the United States and the first national office was opened in 1980.

The company also introduced reservation services at this time; where customers could call a toll free line and reserve a rental car anywhere within the country.

By 1989, the car rental business was booming and the company had acquired over 50,000 rental cars with over 500 offices all over the country.

The company, therefore, changed its name from Enterprise Leasing Company to Enterprise Rent-A-Car which signified its specialty in car rentals.

Since inception, exponential growth of the company had been realized and by 1992 annual revenues had surpassed the $1 billion mark.

At this time the company had 10,000 employees spread across the country. Enterprise Rent-A-Car also had offices in basically all neighborhoods in the United States. Businesses were another important sector of the market and therefore the company’s leasing division focussed on fleet management services; serving businesses with small and medium-sized fleets.

Jack Taylor’s vision was focussed on conquering the international market and the company achieved this in February 3rd, 1993 when the first international office was opened in Windsor Canada. This marked the beginning of an unstoppable vision that would, in a few years, go worldwide.

By this time, the company had increased its car fleet to 200,000. A year later, the company had expanded to Europe opening its first European office in Reading, England.

In 1995, the company opened its first ever airport office at the Denver International Airport. While previously the company had not focused on Airport transport, the management found it necessary to venture into the field at this time.

Another great and innovative idea was conceptualized in 1999 in the form of Rent-A-Truck service or simply the Commercial Trucks.

This was an all-new-idea never seen in the market before and was readily accepted.

By 2005, the Enterprise Rent-A-Car had offices in United States, Canada, UK, Germany, and 200 airport offices.

The annual revenue had also surpassed $8 billion and it is no doubt the company was serving about ninety percent of the population in the markets where it was present.

In 2007, Enterprise Rent-A-Car which is fully owned by the Taylor family further boosted its portfolio by acquiring Vanguard Automotive Group which owned National Car Rental and Alamo Rent a car brands.

In 2009, Enterprise Holdings was finally created as the Mother Company or cooperation, that owns three major subsidiaries: Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental, and Alamo Rent A Car.

In 2016 Enterprise Holdings also acquired vRide which is a vanpooling company which had been in operation for over forty years in the American market.

Business model of Enterprise Holdings

Customer Segments

Enterprise Holdings’ customer segments can be divided into three main categories:

  • Car rental customers - These are the customers who rent cars, vans, and trucks. These are the majority of the customers. Airport transport customers also fall into this category.
  • Car Sales customers - The Company has a car sales division whose main responsibility is selling the used cars. Thus, another group of customers is those that buy used rental cars.
  • Businesses - The business division at Enterprise Holdings offers car fleet management services to small and medium-sized business. Hence, another customer segment is the small and medium-sized businesses.

Channels

Enterprise Holdings’ services heavily rely on online customers’ reviews and feedback.

This forms a powerful marketing tool making the company have a huge online portfolio because of the numerous feedback submitted by the customers.

Awareness of the company’s services has also been enhanced by the use of paid adverts. Over the last three decades, the company has invested heavily in this marketing strategy; often coming up with catchy phrases such as “We’ll pick you up” which is also its trademark.

Customer relationships

Enterprise Holdings business model is based on Jack Taylor’s philosophy where customers and employees are given first priority.

The company is very keen on offering services that are a hundred percent satisfactory. Often the company carries out surveys and collects feedback from customers on how to improve its services.

Value Proposition

The business model adopted by the company is viable to all kinds of people, whether drivers, managers, lawyers, accountants, Human resource experts and office clerks.

The company brings its services closer to the people and hence taking care of the immediate car rental needs. Numerous customized services such as commercial trucks and car sharing have been launched in order to offer services that meet the immediate needs of the people in the neighborhoods.

Business fleet management services are also very beneficial to the small and medium-sized businesses that need a fairground, such as cheaper transport solutions in order to grow and compete with the larger and more established businesses.

Key Activities

The company’s main business niches are car rentals and used car sales.

Progressive and innovative business ideas have led to the establishment of unique services such as commercial trucks and car sharing programs that are not only convenient but cheaper as well.

Another key activity or service is the airport car rental service. With over 200 airport offices, Enterprise Holdings controls a significant share in this market segment.

Key Resources

Enterprise Holdings is no doubt a success story in the car rental industry. Its success story follows the founding philosophy that is held dearly within the company’s ranks to date.

Unlike many other businesses, Enterprise Holdings focusses on the customers and employees first, hence offering improved and satisfactory services at all times.

Another key resource at Enterprise Holdings is the Human resource. Its 100,000 employees are adequately trained in how to discharge their duties based on the founding philosophy and the laid out business model.

These employees have a sense of belonging, hence discharging their duties with pride and the required diligence.

Key Partners

Although Enterprise Holdings is a private company fully owned by the Taylor family, there are key partners that have enabled the company to build its global network and outreach.

The company focuses on taking services to the people and hence the local authorities and governments such as the state of California and London metropolitan department are key partners in ensuring that there are adequate laws and regulations for the business to thrive.

Other key partners are the independent regional subsidiaries that offer services in the overseas regional offices and at the neighborhood level. These subsidiaries include RideShare, Zimride, Enterprise Flex-e-rent and exotic car collection as well as a mix of corporate and franchise companies operating overseas.

These subsidiary companies supervise and execute the services on behalf of the Mother Company.

Cost Structure

Enterprise Holdings is a privately owned company and does not publicly share detailed financial information. However, from its business structure, it is quite easy to guess that the largest cost for the company would be its large fleet of two million cars, vans, and trucks.

The company also has quite a large workforce of 100,000 employees and 15,000 office locations in about 90 different countries.

Revenue Streams

The company’s revenue streams are mainly from the services offered, as well as used car sales. As per the latest Forbes rankings, the company had annual revenue of $24 billion in 2017.