Enterprise Rent-A-Car
PLACEMENT REPORT
Candidate Number: 841242
Degree: Accounting for Management
Employer: Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Job Title: Management Trainee
Department/Functional Area: Management
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Placement Report 2013
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Contents
Executive summary ................................................................................................................................. 4
Organisational Background ..................................................................................................................... 4
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability ....................................................................... 5
Sustainability ....................................................................................................................................... 5
Employment Experience ......................................................................................................................... 5
The Recruitment Process ........................................................................................................................ 6
The Induction Process ............................................................................................................................. 7
Advice for Future Students ..................................................................................................................... 8
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Executive summary
Throughout this report you will see my personal feedback about my placement at
Enterprise Rent-A-Car and my knowledge about what they are about and how they
are trying to help make the world a better place.
In order are the following sections:
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Organisational background
CSR & sustainability
Employment experience
The recruitment process
The induction process
Advice to students
Organisational Background
Enterprise Rent-A-Car was founded in 1957 and is an internationally known rent-acar service. They operate in more than ‘6000 neighbourhood and airport locations in
the United States, Canada, UK, Ireland, Germany, France and Spain.’ (Enterprise
Rent-A-Car, About us). It is a private company that is family owned by the Taylor
family. It started out as a leasing company so that people who needed vehicles
would lease them rather than buy as it can work out cheaper. (Enterprise Rent-ACar, History). This organisation started out in a basement with a group of men
around a table discussing about leasing, now this business has been seen to ‘grow
to more than $14.1 billion in revenue’. (Enterprise Rent-A-Car, History).
The greatest part about this company is that they allow you to make empowered
decisions so that you are in control of your own branch. Thus working on a
commission basis means that you are in control of your own salary.
Jack Taylor started the organisation based on 8 core values (Enterprise, Values):
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Our brand is the most valuable thing we own.
Personal honesty and integrity are the foundations of our success.
Customer service is our way of life.
Great things happen when we listen… to our customers and to each other.
Enterprise is a fun and friendly place, where teamwork rules.
We work hard…and we reward hard work.
We strengthen our communities, one neighbourhood at a time.
Our doors are open.
My position at Enterprise Rent-A-Car was Management Trainee. The greatest thing
about Enterprise is that everyone has started where I began. This meant that
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
everyone understood the roles and made the company act on more realistic when
making accurate decisions.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability
Enterprise is very different from its competitors in terms of their CSR and
Sustainability. One of their core values: ‘We strengthen our communities, one
neighbourhood at a time’ defines what they aim to do. Even though they are a global
organisation they see themselves as a ‘local’ company. By this they want to make it
a personal level with the local residents and to help generate economies of scale
through sales and employing the people which will help benefit the families in that
area. There is also a charitable foundation, Enterprise Foundation where money is
donated to help local causes.
Sustainability
Enterprise have always seen sustainability to be a slight problem as they add quite a
lot of emissions to the environment because of its business set up. Enterprise RentA-Car has a corporate environmental platform that consists of the five areas to tackle
this problem:
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Conservation – The 50 Million tree pledge. Enterprise Rent-A-Car aim to plant
50 million trees over the next 50 years. So far 5 million have been planted.
Fuel Efficiency – Buying cleaner and more economical vehicles to lower
emissions. 47mpg is what the emissions are in Europe.
Alternative technologies – Using the new hybrid vehicles lower emissions and
will continue to keep reviewing other options.
Research and development – $25 million donated to find renewable fuels to
make it more affordable and acceptable.
Carbon Offset – allows the customers to pay towards the Carbon Offset which
the money is collected to fund projects through climate care.
Employment Experience
My experience at Enterprise Rent-A-Car has empowered me with various new skills
and abilities to perform and make managerial decisions. Since starting there I got the
chance to experience what it is like to run the operations of a business. The core
areas to running a branch are:
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Providing excellent customer service.
Training and Developing employees.
Increasing revenue generation to exceed costs.
Growing the business.
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
As a Management Trainee I had to provide ‘exceptional service’ whilst also selling
addition products to customer to generate more revenue. It was really exciting as I
would try my best to make it into the ‘Elite Club Matrix’ which includes the top 10
employees out of 150 that have excelled in sales and customer service. This is
measured by a tool that breaks down the exact amount sold and based on customer
service letters received from customers. I made the ‘Elite club’ 4 times and went to
the following:
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Alton towers x2.
Horse races in Worcester.
Indoor rock climbing and sushi bar.
This relates to the value ‘We Work Hard…And We Reward Hard Work’. Another
pleasing factor about my experience is the exposure of making those managerial
decisions in a work place.
Enterprise allows you to take control of an area of the business that you want to
excel in. I chose to become the ‘Sales’ & ‘Fuel’ captain, this is what my manager
called it. In these positions I had to increase the sales generation from the team by
providing training, shadowing, morning meetings and feedback.
To reduce the fuel costs I had to take a different approach, I had to organise and
manage the outgoings and then monitor and make sure the team was selling fuel
and charging customers fuel if there were a discrepancy if they returned the vehicle
with less.
The Recruitment Process
The recruitment process at Enterprise was very smooth and easily approachable.
When I applied I had to do the following:
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Make an application for the position online.
Have a telephone interview based on background information and
competencies.
Have a face-to-face interview with the Human resource team.
Assessment centre with a final interview.
What I did to make this process go so smoothly is by getting involved with extracurricular activities. How this helped was by doing these extra activities at University
supplied me with certain skills employers are looking for in a student. This makes
you then more employable and when challenging opportunities come, with this
experience as evidence can make these opportunities seem easier to grasp.
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
The most important part of this process is making sure you get your competencies
correct. These are:
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Sales culture
Customer service
Work ethic
Flexibility
Leadership
Communication
All I did for my interview process was prepare good quality examples for each of
these. For example, with customer service I used to work part time in a building
society. I would answer the question revolved around how this position at the
building society enabled me to gain a good quality customer service by relating sales
into it also.
The Induction Process
The induction process at Enterprise is fantastic. They really make you feel
comfortable and the first week really enjoyable. You do have to digest a lot of
information but you get to meet all the new intake of successful applicants who will
be working in other branches. The schedule for the week was:
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Monday – About Enterprise, Health and Safety and Cycles of Service
Tuesday – Cycles of Service (continued) & Sales training
Wednesday – Sales Training and Branch Operations,
Thursday – Branch visit.
Friday – Feedback, Q&A and finalise on departments.
The cycle of service is a process where employees will experience a series with
each customer. This would be from the telephone (1), pick up (2), to the branch (3),
writing the contract (4), to the car (5), call-back (6), return of vehicle (7), invitation to
return (8) and completely satisfied customer (9). Enterprise Rent-A-Car uses this tool
to show employees exactly what is required to get a completely satisfied customer.
The sales training is heavily focused on the products available and the way to pitch
to customers. This comes with practice and you’ll be explained exactly the best way
to do this.
Branch operations and Branch visits just prepares you so that when you start work
as of the following week you are prepared and know what to expect and it’s a good
way to introduce and meet the team before starting.
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Advice for Future Students
The great thing about Enterprise Rent-A-Car they will arrange the location of the
branch to be one of the local ones to you. I use to travel from Dudley to Birmingham
which was on 13 miles which was fantastic.
After speaking with some of my peers I found out that some of them had to travel
between 40-50 miles a day. This use to cost me approximately around £40 per week
on fuel but this is also including my social too.
Another reason to join Enterprise is that there are so many branches that there is
going to be one local to yourself. This also means that you can save money on
accommodation because there will be one local to you.
The only issue I had was my eating conditions; it’s expensive in Birmingham City so I
use to spend £5-£10 per day. This can be easily resolved by preparing your own
food at home. Besides this the only other costs I would incur would be my vehicle
maintenance.
Enterprise Rent-A-Car is a great place to work and my advice is to make sure you
keep asking questions and find out as much as you can to be able to develop
yourself. The employer also really appreciates someone who works hard and keeps
asking great questions.