Carzonrent Sets Industry Standard With Web Platform

But back when Carzonrent launched in 2000, the taxi business in India looked very different. It was disorganized and had none of services that consumers have come to expect today including reservations systems, call centers, and polite, punctual drivers. "A few years ago," says R.K. Vij, CEO, Carzonrent India, "India had only metered or non-metered taxis. A non-metered taxi was called 'rent a car' but it was not really the same thing." The company wanted to change that. It wanted to build a technology-driven, nationally networked car rental company and re-shape the industry.

The Business Case

But before it could get there, the company first needed to change the way the sector - and it - did business. Bookings, for example were, managed manually over the phone, or via fax and e-mail, all of which led to bloated costs and lengthy lead times. Customer invoicing was also done manually, which also resulted in increased operational costs. Worse, the company's standalone applications were not integrated with its payment gateway, giving it little control over payments and cash flow.

"Traditionally, players in the industry used paper registers for reservations," says Vikas Marwah, COO, operations, Carzonrent, alluding to a problem that defined the sector's pandemic lack of refinement. "We decided to break from this league because we were an organized enterprise and wanted to set some new ground rules."

The prevailing decentralized approach also impacted Carzonrent's ability to use its fleet of cars optimally. Different locations ran their own cars separately, making reservation tracking impossible. Rajesh Munjal, head-IT, Carzonrent, witnessed how these inefficiencies are into Carzonrent's revenues. "Our cost per reservation was prohibitive. And credit cards were charged post-service, which resulted in huge revenue loss," he recalls.