A Different Path
Sponsored Content: How Enterprise Holdings transformed from a small startup into a worldwide transportation-solution provider
Enterprise Holdings operates the Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car brands via more than 10,000 fully staffed neighborhood and airport offices in 90-plus countries and territories. However, its global network extends well beyond day-to-day rentals — including car sharing, vanpooling, car sales, truck rental, online ride-matching, exotic cars, subscription and affiliated fleet management services. And as an industry leader, Enterprise Holdings is always striving to discover new ways to expand and improve mobility options, regardless of whether consumers are needing transportation for an hour, a day, a week or longer.
That’s why Enterprise Holdings’ acquisition and corporate venture-capital strategy focuses so heavily on technologies and business models that accelerate industry-leading transportation solutions and customer satisfaction in a rapidly changing marketplace. Since 2008, Enterprise Holdings has spent almost $2.4 billion on acquisitions and corporate-venture capital investments or commitments in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Ireland, Spain, Brazil and China. Its acquisitions include car rental companies, carshare operations, technology platforms and franchises.
The company most recently acquired Deem, an innovative managed-travel technology platform. Through this investment, it is looking to scale Deem’s suite of online booking and travel technology products to make corporate travel booking — and the overall travel experience — more efficient for travelers, corporations and their travel agency partners.
Enterprise Holdings also is collaborating with partners to strategically offer mobility technology. For example, the company is working with General Motors to significantly increase the number of connected vehicles in its fleet. In addition, Enterprise Holdings is partnering with Voyage to help introduce autonomous driving technology, as well as new best-in-class sensor technology. And it is using Enterprise LaunchPad mobile tablets to enhance rental transactions and make the customer experience even more flexible.
Enterprise Holdings’ success reflects a critical confluence of entrepreneurship, technology and customer responsiveness. In fact, by building on its founder’s vision and honoring his values, the company’s efforts have been guided by a simple but enduring business philosophy since 1957: “Take care of customers and employees first, and profits will follow.”
Sure enough, it was feedback from early customers that indicated they wanted to rent cars right where they lived and worked. Enterprise Holdings listened and has been listening ever since.
Today, Enterprise Holdings’ three brands serve more than 95 percent of the worldwide car rental market, with Enterprise, National and Alamo customers logging more than 30 billion miles worldwide every year. And many of those miles are driven locally in their very own communities, mostly in late-model, fuel-efficient vehicles, which makes local car rental one of the most effective and sustainable mobility options available.
Further, the annual revenues of Enterprise Holdings and its affiliate, Enterprise Fleet Management, now rank near the top of the global travel industry, ahead of many airlines and most cruise lines, hotels, tour operators and online travel agencies. Enterprise Holdings is very proud of how hard work and innovation have helped transform the company from a small startup into a transportation-solution provider that makes mobility both convenient and accessible for its customers through the world’s largest infrastructure of vehicles, locations and people.
