New Enterprise Corp. Gross sales Head Dissects Sector’s Adjustments

Mike Guadagnoli, a 22-year Enterprise Mobility veteran, became the company’s VP of business rental sales and global operations in September after the retirement of Don Moore, who headed Enterprise’s corporate sales for eight years. BTN’s Donna M. Airoldi talked with Guadagnoli about his new position, current customer challenges and corporate booking trends. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

BTN: You were the VP of global strategic sales before your recent promotion. How did that role prepare you for this new one?

Mike Guadagnoli: Our company promotes from within, so it invests a lot into our employees to help them continue to move up in their careers. Over my 22 years of experience, it was approximately four years on the operational side, but then the past 18 years I’ve been in some type of sales leadership or sales management role.

[After working in New Mexico and Houston,] I became the assistant vice president of Canadian operations … and cut my teeth internationally. Then I took on a larger role within 11 operated groups in the south-central portion of the U.S. The last five years in the global strategic role really helped me expand my international understanding of the commercial market. 

I started to work with not only our corporate-owned locations and their sales teams that are selling to commercial clients throughout the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Germany but also our franchise sales team. Part of my remit in my last role was helping our franchise sales teams that are spread across 95-plus additional markets [to] develop and hone their skills on how to attack the opportunities in the commercial space. 

It’s basically a lot of education and slow progression over the last 18 years that have helped me to be in a position to take on and take over for Don.

BTN: What are your plans for the role to make it your own?

Guadagnoli: We recognize that the space continues to evolve, as travelers and decision makers within businesses are expecting a different level of service and a different experience, and their needs and their consumer buying habits evolve with generational differences. 

This all goes back to what I think is one of our core fundamentals, and this is what I will do that’s very similar to Don, is every decision in every strategy and every focus of mine will be twofold. It will be: What is in the best interest of our customers? What are they saying, what do they need, what do they want? And that will help shape our strategy, making sure that we’re listening to them, and that we’re really focused on the customer experience. The customers will drive a lot of that strategy, and that’s very similar to what Don did. 

The next thing that will drive what we focus on and what we do is listening to our employees and making sure that what I just described about my journey up, we’re giving those same opportunities to all the folks that are on my team.

BTN: What challenges and problems are customers facing now that may be different from five years ago?

Guadagnoli: [During the pandemic,] we had an availability and an inventory challenge. So the message was: Book early. At the height of Covid, the booking curve got really large. We’re seeing it starting to come down. It does suggest that there’s better planning, but what’s also suggested is that there’s been a change in traveler behaviors. And one of those noticeable changes we’re starting to see is an increase in one-day and two-day rentals.

Why? One, because the workforce is becoming more remote, and our internal studies and data suggest that business travel is starting to be defined differently, and there’s a need for somebody to go into an office for a meeting, and that is a one-day trip. These are things that companies are trying to understand: ‘As my workforce has gotten more remote, what are my challenges and how can I solve for them?’ And we are trying to work with our clients to say we’re recognizing this. 

We’re seeing an 11 percent increase in that one- to two-day trip, which is growing faster than the three-plus-day trip, which illustrates the opportunity that companies are trying to figure out. ‘If my employee’s got to come in for one meeting, what is the best mode of mobility for them to get there?’ And a lot of times we can solve that through the use of one of our services, whether it’s our commuting offering or whether it’s our van-pooling offering, or whether it’s our home city network of daily rental vehicles.

BTN: Any other challenges?

Guadagnoli: The other big topic is [environmental, social and governance] mandates and carbon reduction and carbon offset. It seems like customers are all struggling to figure out what does that mean in the ground transportation world. I think it’s impossible to have a sustainability conversation and a ground transportation conversation without talking about [electric vehicles] or electrification, but there’s a lot more that we could do to help our customers solve for their carbon-reduction problems. Again, Commute by Enterprise is a great example of how we’ve worked with companies to meet certain carbon-reduction goals by helping them take their employees to and from campus every day. 

BTN: What are you seeing from your corporate clients regarding EV rentals? 

Guadagnoli: Every business trip is so different in terms of where you have to drive to, where you’re staying, how long is it, etc. I think what travel managers are grappling with is from a traditional transient airport rental standpoint, all of us are really hard-pressed to understand how electrification in the travel program is going to actually work, and what are the risks associated with that. 

They’re still asking the questions though. They still want to see pricing. They want it to be included in the contract, because there is this sense of responsibility that ‘my company has asked me to focus on this broader sustainability initiative and to incorporate electrification into my pricing and have it as an option for somebody that may be comfortable renting that type of unit.’ OK, let’s do that. But I would not suggest that there’s been this big force or push to really promote that largely because of the infrastructure of vehicle charging at the airport in and around some of these cities where their travelers are going.

Where we do see a much stronger push, again, is when we can go in and work with a company that has a very dedicated loop of travel. Maybe an employee regularly goes from one corporate campus in one city to another corporate campus in another city, and both locations have charging infrastructure onsite. Or it’s maybe a company vehicle that somebody needs that they have charging access at their home. And it’s a very closed loop. We’re seeing a lot of success there.

BTN: What do corporate travel managers want now from a preferred relationship with Enterprise?

Guadagnoli: Corporate buyers want their programs to be convenient for the traveler based on service and expectations and availability. They want safety and security. They want integrated solutions as it relates to expense management. They want tech and app. I call that the functional value. I mean, they’re still very much focused, and what’s driving their decision is the functional value of preferred partners. We are seeing companies that are looking at just alternative ways to transport people. Again, as the remote force has become more widespread, and as the workforce has become more remote.

BTN: What can corporate managers or travelers look forward to from Enterprise Mobility in the near future?

Guadagnoli: We are in a process of bringing more features and additional benefits from a loyalty perspective. It’s not available today. We’ve always known how important loyalty is, but we’re continuing to build on our loyalty program. So, loyalty should be something that would excite travelers. [Also,] additional business lines and building out, continuing to invest in alternative mobility lines, whether it’s our Commute by Enterprise division, our truck rental division, our fleet management division. These are real emerging businesses that continue to grow and expand, which provide our customers more solutions. We are also investing heavily in car technology that will fuel more instant and on demand reporting.