24VV

I heard through the grape vine that the AX will be going down on much of this region. Almost no one last month had a positve OP, and this month does not look much better. If it wasn't for FLIP no one would have made any money. No one is selling or getting rate, and uninsureds are though the roof. It is nice to see that my old region is truely a failing enterprise, beining it is in the golden child of groups.

January and February are two tough months unless you are in some travel related hot spot.

February always sucked.

Every year Group Mgt would jump up and down and rant and rave and the result was always the same.

Business is slow so cars are pulled... cars have damage on them (duh) so uninsureds go thru the roof.

Along comes March and spring break and things start to get better.... then summer and all is forgotten.

Jan/Feb was ALWAYS the worst time of year to be a L3 at ERAC.

In the month of Jan'05, my Hertz (HLE) location had an OP of $178/per car. And this month Feb looks about the same. That's really good compare to ERAC who has been around for years. I hope for this summer to come around soon!

HLELA

How does your per unit flow out? Same as ERAC? Apples to Apples?

How do they handle depreciate expense?

HLE Branch net revenue was 168,000 minus 143,000 total expense= 25K Net OP.
25K divide by # of cars in your branch = Net OP

Bottom line, all rental car co. uses the same formula. It is apples to apples. We try to get cars w/ the lowest depreciation.

oldschool or Anyone,

How do ERAC control it's branch, regional, or corporate overhead expense? Everyone at ERAC seems like they make alot of money. (i.e. golfing all the time, bragging about making serious $$$, dressing real nice.)

Regional & Corporate OH is spread among ALL branches...

Branch OH hits directly... BM's are responsible to watch this very closely... The most controllable being personnell expense (make note of the posts regarding pay/lunch/time sheets, etc), uninsured loss (again, make a note of deposite policies and practices used to determine if a renter is qualified), depreciation (now make note of the posts about the quality of ERAC cars--cheap cars equal lower depreciation), bad debt (another popular posting---ERAC does not have a "collection" department. MT's, MA's, AM's & BM's must collect money due by any means possible-threats, humilliation, but most likely it ends up with the BM groveling and explaining that it will "hit their paycheck" if not paid)...

Oh, and I forgot...

The sub-culture of ERAC encourages competition...also known as bragging...also known as lying.

ARM's are the ones who typically enjoy the nice clothes and golf... Of course this is because they are not cleaning cars, shoveling snow, etc... And golf is their reward for running tight all month. Hence why the branches can never find them when they need cars...

Uninsureds have nothing to do with overhead (though it is one of the few controllable costs). It wouldn't be so high if BM's took responsibilty and confronted customers on damaged units, instead of just OX'ing the branch down the road every time a ding, nick, or scrape appears on your lot.

They do if you DON'T work at ERAC you dumb ass! Other companies don't subscribe to the ERAC lingo. I'm fairly sure that HLE is not THAT familiar with the per-unit.