Avis: Reversing the downward spiral

Source: Retail Digital

Date :27/11/2007 08:57:41

Shedding recent woes, UK Commercial Director Daniel McCarthy talks to ExecUK how Avis is streamlining and restructuring.

Written by Alison Withers and produced by Kiron Chavda

Avis originated in Detroit, where its founder Warren Avis set up the world’s first ever airport-based car rental agency at Willow Run airport in 1946. It was an idea that came to the former pilot when he was unable to find ground transportation at airports.

Warren Avis died at his Michigan home in April 2007, aged 92. The European division was founded in 1965. However, in recent years the company had been hit by rising costs, multiplying competition and a dwindling market, so two years ago it embarked on a restructuring and refocusing exercise

Daniel McCarthy, 36, was one of the turnaround team brought in to accomplish this restructuring. Born and raised in Malta, he came to the UK to study engineering at university and then worked in marketing for Procter and Gamble. Following five years in New Zealand, McCarthy joined Avis UK in 2005.

The emphasis is on human beings

UK Commercial Director McCarthy is a member of both the UK Avis board and of the European commercial board, which determines the sales and marketing strategy for the European market. He says the company was badly hit by the 9/11attack in New York. The subsequent decline in tourism understandably hit a company based around airports particularly hard. A growth in online car rental brokers did not help and “revenue and profits started going backwards”.

Restructuring one of the largest global rental companies began with a shift of focus towards retail and the customer. The new board of directors first of all engaged the services of retail experts and did a huge market research exercise involving 13,000 customers across Europe.

Armed with the results, it was, McCarthy says: “back to the drawing board” and the first step was an investment, “in the millions”, in IT. This involved restructuring the website, which was particularly important in the UK, where McCarthy says online shopping is significantly ahead of the rest of the world, with the exception of the USA…

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