Failing Enterprise Blog 2007-01

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The Admin talks about our online community

Friday, January 12th

Some additional groups have now got enough traffic to warrant having their own forums:

• Group 21 - Virginia
• Group 39 - Northeast Ohio
• Group 58 - Kentucky
• Group 63 - Montana, Dakotas
• Group C7 - Quebec

This leaves only a handful of groups that don't have their own forums.  What is it about Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Nova Scotia that don't generate any posts here?

Lots of new fan mail posted today.  Keep them coming!

Thursday, January 11th

The word on the discussion boards is there's some trouble in Germany.  Apparently, three administrative offices, G4 (Stuttgart), G7 (Hanover), and G8 (Leipzig) are closing down and some employees have been laid off.  While this doesn't appear to immediately affect rental operations, it's certainly not a sign of profitable growth there.

I'm curious as to why the Enterprise model hasn't been so successful in Germany.  Here are some possibilities:

• Maybe Germany doesn't have the cultural and legal environment to automatically provide replacement cars when cars are in the shop?
• Maybe Germans simply won't put up with the incessant lying required to make a U.S. branch profitable?
• Maybe there are tax or other differences in the German business environment that make it tougher to succeed in this industry?
• Maybe Enterprise made the same mistake that Wal-Mart made and imported non-German speaking Americans who didn't understand the culture?

I've been hearing for years that Enterprise recruiters boast to candidates that Enterprise has never had any layoffs.  I wonder if the story will change now.

More on Enterprise car rental at the Failing Enterprise home page.