IMPERIAL CAR RENTAL
... split it into: Imperial focusing on the corporate market, Tempest Car Hire focusing on the leisure market, Europcar focusing on foreign visitors, Khaya focusing on the black market and Swans focusing on budget vehicles. Imperial have the support of a computer system assisting them with the management of their fleet of 7000 vehicles in 8 African countries, with 100 branches and agencies around SA. This enables them to deliver their services country wide. They even have their own security company to track their stolen vehicles. The majority of Imperial’s fleet is less than one year old not exceeding 35 000km which entails that the vehicles is still relatively new to the benefit of the customer. All of these vehicles go through stringent quality checks before every rental. Brand management plays a crucial part and customers are often requested to fill in questionnaires in order to establish rental experience. Further the MD is aware of all complaints and personally deals with them most of the time. Cooperation agreements is signed which resulted in access to mutual customers for example Excel Petroleum. Imperial also actively participates in social responsibility initiatives and community development. Human resources is of vital importance to Imperial and its policy of promotion from within makes it a preferred employer. QUESTION 2 Porter proposed that there are three different generic strategies for an organization to gain competitive advantage. These were “overall cost leadership”, differentiation” and “focus” However Porter’s models caused a lot of confusion and focus will be on the work of Bowman and D’Aveni. From the case study it is evident that Imperial did make use of the Price based strategies and in particular the “no frills strategy”. The no frills strategy is defined as a combination of a low price, low perceived product/service benefits and a focus on a price sensitive market segment. This strategy is clear in the “Swans”, where Imperial offers older cars for backpackers and other budget travelers. Therefore the service is provided at a lower cost, because the older vehicles are not so expensive as the newer models, for a segment in the market ...