Comment by Ken_At_EM
4 years ago
Thank you for yet another detailed reply.
Reading the linked article all I could think was: Hertz doesn’t deserve to exist. It just seems like they’re a Frankenstein of 30 years of mediocre to poor decisions.
Ultimately I think a lot of companies that use Accenture don’t deserve to exist, and ultimately will be outcompeted.
You assume an approximation of a free market.
In the US, most "markets" are largely dominated by monopoly, duopoly, or cartel conditions, and thus rent extraction. Combined with the efficacy and returns of lobbying congress for market barriers and subsidies, most companies are entrenched.
There are so many reforms needed in the US, but breaking up monopolies, or just stopping mergers, would be task #1. Price, creativity, options, innovation, worker empowerment, amount of employment, wages, all improve with more companies, more options, and more competition.
What stops someone specifically from disrupting the Auto Rental industry?
1) real estate by the airports is probably #1
2) airport counter real estate or the real estate at the "car rental satellite facility" is probably hard to get
3) fleet sale discounting with the car companies
But #1 is probably the main one.
Car rentals are actually decent in competition, although there may have been a merger flurry at some point.
Yup, Enterprise, Avis, and Hertz own them all.
It would probably take self-driving so an off-airport lot could dispatch self-driving cars to someone.
Customer service at car rentals is awful, it always seems to take an hour to get a dumb piece of paper and someone that says "go to this spot"
Disclaimer: not an industry expert, but all I see is three companies with the market share and no one new in probably 40 years, awful IT and customer service, and companies mistakenly calling the cops on their own customers for not-stolen cars.
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