Enterprise Rent-A-Car Argumentative

Enterprise rent a car is a company in the car hires industry that was established 50 years ago as a leasing company, but has grown and ventured into offering car rental services, fleet management, used car sales, Vanpool services in California as well as commercial truck rental through continuous development and the desire to meet the ever changing customers needs.

Customer base

            Enterprise Rent-A-Car has a wide array of customers ranging from individuals who would like to rent cars for their use when they are away from home, to those who would also want to replace their vehicles or cars when the leased cars break down, as well as corporate clients who include companies that would want to rent cars for their employees on trips like team building and cohesion as well as on fact finding missions. Fleet management companies that need vehicles to meet their temporary transport needs also form an important market segment for the company as well as local dealers and service shops for loaning purposes. (Enterprise Rent-A-Car 2)

Mission statement

The companies Mission is to satisfy the commercial truck rental and automotive, car sales, leasing and all related needs of its customers and in the process of doing so, exceed the customer’s expectations for quality, service and value. (Enterprise Rent-A-Car 1)

In order to achieve its mission the company seeks to ensure that their employees provide exceptional services to their customers through employee motivation that entails employee development support, air compensation and provision of opportunities for personal growth.

The company CEO and his Background

The company is headed by Andrew C. Taylor as the CEO, who assumed office in 1991and was subsequently named the company chairman in 2001. (Enterprise Rent-A-Car 2)The CEO holds a Bachelor of Science in business administration from the University of Denver and has got prior work experience for three years at the RLM vehicle Leasing Company before he settled at Enterprise Rent-A-Car as the CEO

Board of directors

Enterprise Rent-A-Car is a private company headed by the company’s board of directors who include representatives from the tailor’s family like Andrew Taylor and members of the companies senior management like, Mr. Donald Ross who is the current vice chairman, the board of directors act as trustees of the company and in liaison with the CEO charts the way forward for the companies products and services as well as its expansion plans. (Enterprise Rent-A-Car 1)

Employees

Today the company has more than 7200 employees in all its branches across the globe serving in various positions that include the subordinate staff positions at lower end in the rental office like rental clerks, drivers and mechanics to the functional or middle level management that includes positions such as accountants, operations managers, marketing managers and human resources to the pinnacle corporate management that is headed by the CEO. (Enterprise Rent-A-Car 1)

Organizational structure

The company has got a tall organizational structure that is headed by the chairman who is also the CEO, followed by the vice chairman and the president who also acts as the chief operating officer respectively. The three are then followed by two functional presidents of the national car rental and that of Rent a car foundation, followed by the executive vice president who the various vice presidents in charge of different regional markets and functional units report to as shown bellow

(Enterprise Rent-A-Car 1)

Technology

The company has embraced technology in its service provision in that it has made arrangements with Google to ensure that its clients book online, equally in order to make the planed car sharing service competitive the company also has initiated the use of membership cards that are flipped in order to open the car doors thus being a security measure. (Nassauer 2)

The company’s foreign operations

Enterprise Rent-A-Car basically went global in 1993 when it launched its first office outside the US market in Windsor, Ontario. From then the company has made major inroads into Canada, UK, Germany and Ireland, with the most current expansion in the US being into Puerto Rico

Today the company has close to more than 900 international car rental branches across the international market segments shown above, offering the same services and commitment to the international customers in their very locality.

Company ethics

The company’s ethics is based on the premise that -take care of the customers and employees and profits will follow, this forms the basis of the general culture that the entire company envisages-customer satisfaction is prime no matter the cost(Enterprise Rent-A-Car 3).

The company’s performance and plans

Enterprise Rent-A-Car has actually grown tremendously since its inception in 1957, to become the largest car rental company in its parent continent North America. The company today has got over 7000 offices conveniently scattered around its market segments to effectively satisfy its customers. (Enterprise Rent-A-Car 3) Over the years the company’s annual revenue world wide has been on an increasing trend with the financial year 2008 the company posting $10.1 billion a $0.6 billion increase from he previous years $9.5 in 2007, This was as a result of continued commitment and increase in the number of rental cars from 667,000automobiles in 2007 to 714,000automobiles in 2008.Basing on this positive growth the company plans to venture into the car sharing business.

Competitors

Enterprise Rent-A-Car Company has three major competitors namely: Zipcar which is a Boston based car Rental Company with a strong market presence to the tune of 5,500 cars and coverage of 120 universities and over 500 businesses. U-Haul car hire is the other major competitor that is actually competing with Enterprise Rent-A-Car Company, on the grounds of technological advancement in service provision since the company has also initiated online booking. The other competitor is Hertz car’s that is also eying the car sharing market. (Roger Yu 1)

Works cited

Enterprise Rent-A-Car, 7th December 2008 accessed from http://aboutus.enterprise.com

Nassauer, S. Enterprise plans to expand car sharing business in US, The Wall Street

 Journal, 1st October 2008 pp2

Roger Yu. New car rental companies get into the business of sharing, the US today

            Newspaper on 30^th September 2008 p1