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JulyAugust2003

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PuttingPEOPLE First At a time when many corporations are faltering, Enterprise Rent-A-Car continues to move forward, Enterprise Rent-A-Car was established in 1957 in St. Louis, Missouri, as a one-man operation that shared basement space with a body shop. Today it has grown to be a company with more than 50,000 employees and 5,150 offices in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Ireland. CEO and chairman Andrew (Andy) Taylor has developed Enterprise into the largest rental car company in North America. He credits much of his success to the vision and principles of his father, Jack Taylor, who founded the corporation. In a recent interview, Taylor charted the Enterprise evolution from its modest start to its successful present. He discussed the how and why of corporate ethics and values, explained why Enterprise's management train- ing program has been called an MBA crash course, and meditated on the responsibility that CEOs carry for the betterment of society. You mention motivated and pioneering employees. What are some other attributes you look for in today's managers and tomorrow's MBA graduates? We look for several attributes in potential employees; but, in short, Enterprise is made up of individuals who thrive on being in charge or dream of being entrepreneurs. We look for individuals who have leadership skills and who have worked in some capacity to develop those skills. We also like to see indi- viduals who are genuine team players, who are eager to share ideas, who have demonstrated their enthusiasm and drive, and who have a customer service attitude. At Enterprise, we believe you can pick up your MBA on the job. In fact, our employment recruiting materials state that our management training program is like an MBA with- out the IOU. So perhaps I'm not the most appropriate per- son to offer advice to MBA students. by Jonathan Schlereth During your tenure, Enterprise has joined the top tier of U.S. industries and moved into global markets. How did you engineer that progression? As we moved into different markets, we obviously didn't have the word-of-mouth support and reputation that we had built in our home city of St. Louis and other areas. Although we were convinced that our business model would translate suc- cessfully into other markets, we faced unique challenges, par- ticularly when we built our first international operations. We knew we had to do our homework, learn about each market, focus on our core competencies, and get out into the community to start building relationships—because our busi- ness is very much based on strong relationships. If I had to choose one critical success factor in our move into new mar- kets, I would point to motivated, pioneering employees who have been excited about taking on a new challenge and mak- ing the business work. There is one constant in every market, domestic or foreign: Superior customer service knows no cul- tural or geographic boundaries. 16 BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2003 How do you train managers at Enterprise? Our management training program, which has been com- pared to an MBA crash course, teaches employees how to run their own businesses. We believe that every employee who serves customers at the front counter is learn- ing the ins and outs of the business world, including managing profit-and-loss state- ments, controlling expenses, and implement- ing a comprehensive business plan. If they learn their lessons well, every one of these managers-in-training will get the chance to run a part of the company as if it were their own business, including sharing in the profits they help create. We have a strong promote-from-within policy, and advancement is based on individual performance. As a result, management trainees in our rental car operation determine for themselves how quickly they move up in the company. From the assistant manager position on up, our employees are paid a salary plus a percentage of their branch's profits. Employees usually attain the assistant manager position after they've been working for between one and two years. Nearly 100 percent of our current senior management started as management trainees, staffing rental car offices and working with customers. You started at Enterprise as a kind of quintessential management trainee. You repossessed cars with your father, washed cars through high school, and later PHOTOS COURTESY ENTERPRISE RENT-A-CAR

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