Seven months
after Dav El Chauffeured Transportation Network announced a sales, marketing and distribution pact with Hertz Corp., full technological integration between
the companies remains a year away but cross-selling initiatives now are in
place, Dav El president and CEO Scott Solombrino told BTN this week at the National Business Travel Association's 2010 International
Convention & Exposition in Houston.
"We're
already merging sales and talking marketing, and we're doing things in every
channel," Solombrino said, "but they're a huge company, and you have
to go group by group, department by department, around the globe to make sure
the synergies are working."
Sales
executives from the two companies can offer the other's services, and travelers
can access both reservation platforms through either website, Solombrino said. The
companies now are integrating U.S. and international call centers and
furthering tech integration to reduce the manual intervention required for
joint accounts.
"The
integration with Hertz is going to take us 12 months," Solombrino said.
"What we're working on now is IT solutions and getting the ITs to talk to
each other, which is far beyond my capability. It's all Hertz's technological
investment. We're executing what we said we'd execute in January: being able to
make the [reservations] between the companies and have less manual operations
and more tech resolution. Remember, they have many systems, and we have one. We
have to get our one to work with all their many, and once that happens, things
will really start to flow."