Enterprise Holdings' Greg Stubblefield On National's Global Push & User Experience

In the eight years since Enterprise Holdings acquired the National Car Rental brand, it has invested heavily to increase the corporate-focused brand's standing, according to Enterprise chief strategy officer and executive vice president of global sales and marketing Greg Stubblefield. "National had always been a third tier to Hertz and Avis, so we spent an enormous sum of money building the infrastructure for National, and you can see it in the customer satisfaction scores," Stubblefield said. "In certain measurements, it's equal to or greater than Avis, and it's moving down the path to catch Hertz as the premier business travel supplier." During the Global Business Travel Association's annual convention, Stubblefield spoke with BTN transportation editor Michael B. Baker about Enterprise's investment and National's technology and global growth plans.

What are your plans for global growth?

We continue to enhance the service through our Emerald Aisle [program that allows Emerald Club customers to bypass the counter and select a vehicle] and frictionless, touchless speed and efficiency. And our North American operations do an unbelievable job. About six months ago, we got the National brand back in Europe. We are launching on Sept. 1 at 17 airports a sign-and-go, where you bypass the counter and get your car. In the middle of October, we'll have another 11, and in November, we'll add six in Spain. So, we'll have 34 sign-and go facilities in Europe, which represents about 85 percent of the busy commercial traffic. They'll be at Frankfurt, Heathrow, de Gaulle—all the big ones.

What we're trying to do with the commercial business in Europe is differentiate our service through customer satisfaction. Europe, in the rental car space, is not a great experience. It's not that they're bad, but they don't give attention to it, so we're monitoring, watching and measuring our facilities the same way we'd measure here. We've got 1,250 stores in Europe, which puts us on par with anybody. We have 150,000 vehicles, which puts us No. 2 in the market.

In Asia/Pacific, which is our next foray, we're doing great in China. We're operating today in 100 cities in China—tier-one and tier-two and moving into tier-three cities. We've got about 750 rental points, making us the clear No. 2 in the market. We don't necessarily want to be No. 1. Being the best is the most important. We launch Australia in the next 60 days. We have 16 entry points into Australia we're launching. In early 2016, we'll launch in New Zealand and start to fill in the rest of Asia/Pacific. Today, we operate in 72 countries.

Are you making a bigger push on the sales side to win contracts with Europe-based companies?

If you can serve corporate business in North America, but you can't serve it in the rest of the world, you run the risk of losing it [in North America]. Part of our role is to fill in the spots around the world where our most important customers operate. Our big commercial partners operate all over the globe. We have almost 35 percent of the global rental business, and 50 percent of that global business is in North America. We need to take our position as a global leader.

How is corporate demand holding up?

Generally, in North America, the economy seems to be robust. In Northern Europe, it seems to be very strong. … From a travel point of view, France, Spain, Italy and Greece are having their best years ever for inbound travel. Because of some of the challenges in Northern Africa and the southern Mediterranean, there's a lot of business and leisure travel that's ending up in southern Europe versus northern Africa. … Even though there are reports that [Asia] is slowing, it's still 6 to 7 percent growth. It's just not double-digit. China is working on its domestic business. As opposed to being the factory floor for the world, they want to develop their own economy and travel and business.

What are your tech initiatives?

We used to, as an industry, serve up how you experienced [corporate travel], and there was one way: You'd go to the counter, rent the car, go to your assigned spot. Today, technology is transforming that. We want to make sure that, from a technology point of view, we allow you to experience your sharing and renting of a vehicle how you want it. We're in the process of enabling all those things. Some is driven by the car manufacturers, with OnStar and things like that. Others are after-market technology that will allow you to access the vehicle via your smartphone. When you land, we'll send you a text that says your car is here, thanks for arriving and here's your access code to scan when you get to the car. The arrival [text] alerts are [already] available. … We will have a robust process [for accessing the vehicle] on our road map for the next 12 to 24 months.

Are corporate customers using the car-sharing model?

Fundamentally, sharing has been around for decades, but … technology is enabling some things that used to be done on a pure manual, person-to-person basis. If you take a big corporate campus with 2,000 people [that has] pooled vehicles, we'll put car sharing in there and, based upon technology, we can track who took the car and bill it back to the departments. It used to be manual, so everyone needed their own cars. Today, we can reduce a footprint of 50 vehicles down to 20 and be more efficient.

Are corporate customers expressing big demand for hybrid rentals?

In China, yes, there's this desire for environmental because they have a big issue with it. In Europe, there's some. What we try to do is to mirror what the general population drives. If the general population is 5 percent hybrids, we want to be 5 percent hybrids. If they're 50 percent, we'll be 50 percent. We move where the market moves, and we refresh our fleet so often we're able to move it to mirror the general population. In North America, when gas was creeping up to $5 a gallon, no one wanted an SUV. Everyone wanted a hybrid. Today, when gas is $2.40 a gallon, nobody thinks about it. We also beta test some hybrids and electric cars.