Hertz Crisis Presentation 1

Team Crisis ProjectCIS 300-009

Jie he, Ben Rickard, Quinton Taylor, Ruo-Fan Wang, Justin Wolf

Hertz Crisis Presentation 2

Table content

Title Page…………………………………………………………………………….1

Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………2

I. Executive Summary………………………………………………………3

II. Introduction……………………………………………………………....4

III. Statement of Problem…………………………………………………….4

IV. Research and results/findings…………………………………………….4-5

V. Detailed recommendations……………………………………………….5

VI. Conclusion………………………………………………………………..5-6

References…………………………………………………………………………..7

Appendix……………………………………………………………………………8-10

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Executive Summary

Overview

Hertz Inc. is facing a challenge with protecting our information and the information of our customers from hackers and causing us to take immediate action to make sure we keep the perception of Hertz and shareholders in good standings with our consumers. We will take the necessary measures to discipline those who violated the rules of the company, make sure this will never happen again with stricter privileges of employees and, continue to be a leading pioneer in our market of company cyber-security.

Problem

There has been a breach in the customer database of Hertz Inc. This problem is not a usual occurrence and the faster we address and control the situation the better for you the stockholders and this company as a whole. Our main objective is to do our duty to the customers, the shareholders, and the well-being of Hertz as a whole and we want to make sure that Hertz Inc. Stands by our values of P.R.I.D.E (See Appendix A) (Hertz Inc., 2011).

Solution

We, as Hertz Inc. have been brainstorming multiple ideas to address this important situation that puts the company and stockholders in jeopardy of a negative backlash. First we have decided to terminate the employee immediately for his actions towards customers while representing Hertz Inc., and could possibly hold them to legal action for violating company policy... As a company we will create a more secure database of the customers information that only a few will have access to so that something like this doesn’t’t happen again

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Introduction to Crisis

A single employee has been discovered using confidential customer records, both print and digital, to harass customers who have given negative comments on third party websites about their experiences with HERTZ Corporation. The employee was acting on his own accord and not under the company’s instruction. The employee has been terminated and steps are being taken to resolve the problems that customers were having and to ensure that this cannot happen again. We are looking into what other companies who have had similar issues and what they have done to solve the problem of employees misusing confidential information, such as Goldman Sachs Group incident in November. We are also researching our own solution that will work best for our own systems. If anything can be certain from this situation it is that customer information will be more secure than ever and that customers should not have any misgivings about using HERTZ Corporation as a vehicle rental service.

Statement of Problem

About a month ago, sometime in early November, one of our employees went searching through the customer database which had all their personal information such as phone number, email address, Home address. The employee began to harass our customers by calling their phones and leaving inappropriate voicemails, slandering their name on social media and blogs which began to affect their ability for employment. One of the customers the employee harassed has employed a lawyer and has begun threatening to sue the company for emotional distress and harassment if we don’t offer a settlement agreement. This situation has yet to reach the media and I believe that once it does nothing but negative publicity for Hertz and you the stockholders. We have begun to take action to take care of this situation as fast as possible by terminating the employee who was responsible and possibly take legal action against them for violating company policy. We have tried to make sure that this situation doesn’t become the center of media frenzy and are willing to do the required research so that this problem will never happen again.

Research and Results Findings

As the leading rental car company in the nation our customer’s safety is the most important thing to us on and off the road. Recently we have had a security breach compromising our valued customer’s information. This has been happening frequently throughout the world but seems to be affecting the U.S. marginally more than any other power countries with regard to technology and cyber-security (Adkins, 2014). (See Appendix B). Since the outbreak of customer information through the use of our data bases, Hertz has looked into the best possible ways to prevent this from happing again by looking at other firms who have been faced with similar issues. In conclusion with our findings Hertz has decided the best way to solve this issue is to add more safeguards to our data bases to prevent employees from looking through customers records without the authorization by their superiors. This system has proven to be very useful to many other firms in recent years and since the adoption of this safeguard companies have not

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seen any more issues with employees using customer information for anything other than intended purposes. Furthermore to increase data security, Hertz has been working with many software providers to increase the use of safer codes for the software each company provides. With the increase in safer coding customers information will be much more secure against possible hacking since this is such a prevalent issue in the US. With these new systems in place Hertz will be able to provide a safer connection and better protection of sensitive information with our valued customers. Gaining a customer’s information without authorization and use those information for other purpose are two issues that we need to deal with and prevent them from happening. We brainstormed together some recommendations to solve this problem and make sure an incident such as this doesn’t happen again.

Detailed Recommendations/ Solutions

Here are some detailed recommendation for this case and those potential similar cases. For this current case, first, the employee who committed the crime should be terminated immediately. Second, this case will be set to a precedent. The outline of the incident will be sent to our employees (See Appendix C). Other actions we can take to prevent it from happening again are to increase the strength of our information database, enhance employee’s ethical awareness, and solve the conflict between customers and employees immediately. The first one is the information security. Compare to a case of Everything Everywhere’s (EE) security team, (A Company Director has been fined after Illegally Accessing of Database.) (2014, November 12) our case did not do harm on the customers’ assets, but this makes us aware of the potential risk and gives us the chance to face it right away. The authorization to gain access to it will be strictly verified and all access should be reported. The second one is the ethical training. Though it is hard to regulate people’s mind, we can set an ethical course in the training for new employees, and the precedent will be mentioned. The last one is to deal with any potential conflict immediately. We do not want to leave any unpleasant emotions to both our employees and our customers. Undesirable employees will be terminated; but also, unwelcome customers will be block from the list. This is to protect the relationship between the company and our employees. We look at this crisis as an opportunity to improve our award winning service. Hertz has an average of four out of five stars on third party websites and we intend to improve that with the recommendations that have been mentioned. (Glassdoor, 2014) We find that a four out of five star rating is impressive for the amount of competition in our product and we are always pushing to become the best company we can be and affect our customers in a positive way. (Indeed, 2014)

ConclusionAfter deliberating about the issue that has been mention HERTZ Company has resolved the issue by terminating the employee, creating an employee ethical enhancement training program, and creating a more secure environment for customer information. In the article in USA Today, the author Foley, stated “Experts say some companies do little to stop such abuses even though they could lead to identity theft, stalking and other privacy invasions”(Foley,2014). HERTZ is committed to providing a safe and enjoyable service that customers can depend on. We stand beside our mission statement and strive to follow through with the promises we made to ourselves, our stakeholders, and most importantly our customers. Our Mission is to be the lowest

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cost; highest quality and most customers focused Rental Company in every market we serve, creating value for our shareholders. We will achieve our Vision and Mission by focusing on, and balancing, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and asset management, with equal emphasis on efficiency and growth. (Hertz Inc., 2011)

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References

A Company Director was fined after Illegally Accessing of Database. (2014, November 12).

Retrieved December 2, 2014, from https://infowatch.com/analytics/leaks_monitoring/434

Adkins, H. (2014, July 12). Market failures: Not my problem! Providing incentives for good

behavior. Retrieved November 30, 2014, from

http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21606422-providing-incentives-good-behaviour-

not-my-problem

Foley, R. (2014). Employees snoop on customer data. Retrieved November 17, 2014, from

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4335187&page=1

Glassdoor. (2014) Hertz Corporation reviews. Retrieved from http://www.indeed.com/cmp/The-

Hertz-Corporation/reviews

Hertz Inc., Mission Statement. (2011, January 1). Retrieved November 28, 2014, from

https://images.hertz.com/pdfs/VMVWeb.pdf

Indeed. (2014) Hertz customer review. Retrieved

from http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Hertz-Reviews-E4071.htm

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Appendix A

(P.R.I.D.E)

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Appendix B

(Amount of Cyber-Attacks per Country)

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Appendix C

(Employee Outline)

Employee Outline of Breach in Customer Database

Our mission: Be the lowest cost, highest quality, and most customers focused in every market we serve, creating value for our shareholders. We will achieve our vision and mission by focusing on, and balancing customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, asset management with equal emphasis on efficiency and growth.

Crisis:

• Employee used access to our customer information database to harass customers who

wrote negative reviews on third party websites.

• He did so by contacting them on social media, postage, and by phone.

• The employee was terminated because of his actions.

• Changes will be made to our systems to ensure that this does not happen again.

Thank you for your hard work. Be prepared for the changes in security that will be put in

place in the following months.