I think the most “duhhh” moment was moving the headquarters. Of course they lost a ton of experienced and qualified staff when they moved the headquarters to Florida. Why wasn’t this seen coming?
$$$
It's nearly always about the money.
The Story of Hertz Going Bust
81–90 of 120 posts
Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the most part, all that I've heard of Accenture seems to match what you are saying.
A remarkably large number of job offers/bid requests I've seen start with some variation of "Accenture screwed up and [client] is looking for someone else to take over". And looking at the former co-workers that have landed there it's not even a little surprising they're that bad.
I've seen this more than once. Senior management thinks maintaining a portfolio of software applications is like flipping hamburgers: they see no problem or risks in one team of developers handing the spatula to another team. What, wasn't the one-day knowledge transfer session not enough? So, the transfer from the home-grown team to Accenture is screwed up. Let's try it again, from the Accenture team to another team; lightning cannot strike twice, can it?
Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust
#83Honestly this is a good thing. There are too many big companies, not enough small, we need more to fail - esp the type that have gone through lots of mergers to reduce competition.
i could get on board with this. Its shortsighted when companies are bailed out for being "too big too fail" so then we don't get a bunch of small companies filling the vacuum.
Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
2014 - its interesting this is when headquarters moved from NJ to Florida. Its a bit like SV - are California/North East expensive because its worth it? I'm not sure if Hertz went downhill because of the move or you just can't run a smart company from Florida.
I have a family member that worked for Hertz during the time of this move. After a lot of consideration and soul searching, they decided not to move down because both his family and his wife’s family were in the North East U.S. and they had small kids who wouldn’t have adjusted well to a cross-country move. So somewhat reluctantly, he resigned his job with Hertz and stayed back while the rest of the team moved down.…
Can confirm, I have many anecdotes of folks who moved and regretted it, and people who found new local jobs who were grateful. It was gut-wrenching for almost everyone.
Our department was an exception. We got to stay in NJ (they laid us all off two years later.)
Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust
#85I am Hertz Alumni, 2011-2016. We had a great group of engineers and product people, many of us far too talented to be in company like what hertz turned into. We were under the leadership of an incredible division head and most of the folks in our group felt a deep sense of loyalty to her. Nearly all of us, including that division head, are gone now, mostly laid off. If you poll any random Hertz alumnus, the story you…
It's interesting to hear both sides. > Sidenote, the work we were doing was replaced with Accenture consultants, who couldn't handle it, screwing up so bad they ended up in court [3]. And elsewhere... > I had the unfortunate opportunity as an Accenture consultant to work on the Hertz redesign. ... Needless to say, leadership across ALL disciplines (mobile, front-end, backend, etc) was a fucking joke and they [presuma…
My original post makes it sound like the accenture engineers dropped the ball. That was not my intention. I wasn't personally involved, had already gone on to other things. My impression, in talking to hertz people over the subsequent years, were that the engineers were fine; it was an issue of sales overpromising and resource allocation, as well as incongruities between stakeholders, but that's second and third-hand information, so take that for what it's worth.
Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust
#86I am Hertz Alumni, 2011-2016. We had a great group of engineers and product people, many of us far too talented to be in company like what hertz turned into. We were under the leadership of an incredible division head and most of the folks in our group felt a deep sense of loyalty to her. Nearly all of us, including that division head, are gone now, mostly laid off. If you poll any random Hertz alumnus, the story you…
Mind naming names on the “incredible division head”?
sorry, but I'm certain she would prefer I didn't.
Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Making a bet and losing doesn't imply idiocy. What were the odds? What was the potential payoff?
Yes, exactly. Though it's not just odds and payoff, but also risk appetite. There's something like risk-aversion, and a corresponding risk-return-tradeoff. But unless we have evidence to the contrary, we can assume that the shareholders are broadly risk-neutral. Especially since lots of shareholding these days is via widely diversified index funds, who don't need to care whether a any single company they hold goes ba…
absolutely not.
If shareholders were risk neutral, they'd be buying bonds, or holding cash. "passive" investment is wholly built upon the concept that "passive" investment outpaces active investment - the very fact that you're in the equity markets suggests you are chasing the 6-8%+ annualized returns (and associated risks) from equity investments. Passive is a replacement for stock picking, and while more conservative in nature, isn't really so in a relative sense.
Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust
#88I think the most “duhhh” moment was moving the headquarters. Of course they lost a ton of experienced and qualified staff when they moved the headquarters to Florida. Why wasn’t this seen coming?
The headquarters are in Estero/Ft Meyers florida. I would know little to nothing about this place except I have a friend living there. He was in golf course management, which should give you a hint about the type of town this is. It is largely a place for wealthy northern folks to spend the winter. To me it seems that the move was so that the CEO could live in a resort town.
Which I get why the CEO would want that, but I don’t get why the board would tolerate such a clear waste of their resources, plus the strategic risk that losing employees represents.
Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust
#89Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust
#90> The company also found that Dollar Thrifty had let the tires on its cars get thinner than Hertz allowed, and many had to be replaced at a cost of $30 million I always wonder if its worth going cheaper or more expensive when renting cars. Stuff like this is interesting, I wonder how many other corners are cut at the cheaper places.
I've always rented from Hertz because they've historically been the least hassle, if more expensive than Enterprise. I live in downtown Toronto and don't own a car. I use car sharing for local needs, but the traditional car rental companies for when I need to leave the city. Enterprise has been consistently terrible. On multiple occasions I've had to wait hours past my scheduled pick-up time due to either understaffi…
> I've always rented from Hertz because they've historically been the least hassle, if more expensive than Enterprise.
The only company that insisted on doing a personal credit pull for a rental that was being paid for on corporate card. And then declined me because "details didn't match". And then (initially) refused to refund my prepaid rental.
Enterprise on the other hand has always been a cakewalk for me.