Zipcar

Zipcar

Question 1

Company Background:

Zippcar is the world's largest car sharing company, offering self-service, on-demand cars by the hour or day for personal or business needs. The low hourly and daily rates include gas, insurance, maintenance and parking. As the creator of the industry in the US, Zipcar has made car sharing a mainstream amenity in more than 50 cities throughout the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, solving the significant parking, congestion and transportation issues that plague urban residents. Zipcar began in 1999, and now has 6,000 vehicles that are shared by more than 275,000 consumer and business members around the world. The fleet includes more than 30 makes and models of vehicles, including the Toyota Prius hybrid, Honda Civic hybrid, Volvo S40 and the MINI Cooper (Berkowitz 1996).

Zipcar 1Zipcar has spent nearly a decade building the industry's leading technology and processes required to operate its sustainable, high growth business model. It is a self-service business, and more than 95% of member activity ranging from reservations to billing all takes place online. Zipcar's industry-leading proprietary technology platform fully connects the information flow between vehicles, members and Zipcar.com and provides secure, self-service access to more than 6,000 vehicles on demand 24/7.

SWOT

With Zipcar, the customer always comes first. This is a major strength that the company has capitalized on in order to separate itself from the competition. Their "We'll pick you up!" slogan is the primary focus of the company's customer service aspect. After the customers, the focus is on employees. Good customer service comes from only the best employees and Zipcar wants all of their employees to be happy with their jobs. By offering a sense of ownership and incentives to advance within the company, Zipcar employees are often very satisfied with their positions.

Zipcar is the largest car rental company with the largest fleet and the most rental locations. Because of this, they are easily accessible all over the country. Their main market focus is the home/city market segment and they are the industry leader in this segment with the most market share. In order to stay on top, Zipcar has kept up with technology and has formed many long-term alliances with insurance agents and car repair shops to produce referrals.

Shifting to the weaknesses of the company finds Zipcar falling short in a couple of areas. Zipcar does not have the largest market share in the entire car rental industry. The company has established itself in the home/city market and has not entered the largest segment of the industry"”airport rentals. As a result, they have low awareness in the industry. Another drawback is the lack of a frequent customer program. Most major car rental companies have these repeat-buyer clubs as they attract repeat business and create more customer awareness. Within the company, Zipcar is also having problems recruiting good employees. Because awareness of the company is low and the image of working for a car rental company isn't that glamorous, college graduates often overlook employment opportunities with ...