Hertz scales faster car rentals with Omnissa Workspace ONE

In the car rental industry, customer experience depends on smooth execution at every step of the rental journey. Hertz relies on shared mobile devices used by its car rental agents to check vehicles in and out, prepare cars for the next customer, and keep lines moving. By standardizing on Omnissa Workspace ONE® and using Omnissa Intelligence, Hertz improved device reliability, strengthened security, and gave IT real-time visibility and control, helping agents deliver seamless rental experiences to customers.

Powering a consistent rental experience at global scale

Hertz operates a highly distributed car rental operation where speed, reliability, and consistency matter at every location. Its ambition is to deliver a fast, frictionless rental experience—whether customers are picking up a car at a major airport or returning it at a neighborhood branch. To support that vision, Hertz relies on a fleet of rugged handheld devices to keep car rental agents productive, vehicles moving, and customers satisfied.

Device friction slows down the rental experience

As Hertz expanded its global footprint, its mobile device environment became increasingly complex. The company was managing close to 10,000 shared mobile devices—predominantly Zebra’s Android-based, rugged tablets—used by frontline employees to check vehicles in and out, capture vehicle condition, and keep cars moving quickly between customers. 

Employees frequently experienced app failures and downtime which hampered customer service. Limited visibility into device health, app performance, and connectivity issues made it difficult for IT teams to identify problems early and forced them into reactive troubleshooting.

This friction had real business consequences. Every delayed check-in, slow return, or unavailable device risked impacting customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. “Every device directly impacts how quickly our agents can complete the process of renting and returning a car. If the device isn’t working, the experience breaks down and customers get frustrated,” says Trent McMurray, senior engineer for enterprise mobility management, Hertz.

Without a more scalable approach, the complexity of managing devices, apps, updates, and security threatened to slow the business down.

Standardizing to simplify management and scale with ease

At the time, Hertz had multiple device management tools in place, including Omnissa Workspace ONE® UEM which was significantly underutilized. The company decided to consolidate its management tools and standardize its entire fleet of Android and iOS devices, including its shared, Android-based Zebra devices, on Workspace ONE. Compared to the other tools, it provided stronger support for shared frontline use cases, better visibility into device and app health, and a scalable platform to support both current operations and future growth. 

“Workspace ONE was the right choice to give our rental agents the best possible mobile experience to do the best possible job for our customers,” says McMurray. “It ensures cars can be rented and returned efficiently.”

With Workspace ONE UEM in place, IT teams gained a single management layer to oversee tens of thousands of mobile devices deployed around the world, along with the apps and operating systems that run on them. IT can now deploy and remove apps on demand, manage OS updates over the air, and monitor device and app health—giving teams early visibility into issues such as app crashes or inactive devices before they disrupt frontline work. 

Workspace ONE UEM also enables Hertz to protect devices and data at scale. “If a device is lost or stolen, we can immediately locate it, lock it, or wipe it. It can’t be reused, and no corporate data gets out in the wild,” says McMurray.  

When issues do require deeper investigation, Omnissa Workspace ONE® Assist further reduces friction for IT by enabling remote troubleshooting. IT teams can remotely access devices to see exactly what’s happening, determine whether the root cause is the network, the app, or the device itself, and resolve problems faster—often without requiring on-site or physical access to the device.

IT teams use Workspace ONE Launcher, an Android app launcher managed through the Workspace ONE UEM console, to lock down the Zebra handhelds into approved business workflows. Because these devices are shared between multiple frontline employees, Launcher ensures every time a device is picked up, access is limited to only the apps and functions that individual rental agent needs to do their job. 

Omnissa Intelligence builds on this foundation by giving Hertz real-time visibility into device health, usage, and performance with dashboards and configurable reports. These reports— paired with AI-based, advanced analytics from Intelligence—help Hertz to pinpoint issues before they impact employees, retire unused devices, and make data-driven decisions about lifecycle management and replacement.

“With Intelligence, we can use GPS coordinates to quickly locate devices that have been misplaced or left in vehicles. We can also monitor battery health, uptime, and downtime, which allows us to take a proactive approach instead of waiting for failures,” says McMurray.

To extend visibility beyond endpoint management, Hertz has integrated Workspace ONE with ServiceNow, using it as the system of record for inventory and auditing. Device data flows automatically into ServiceNow, giving IT and operations teams a consistent, up-to-date view of assets while simplifying audits and compliance reporting.

Measurable gains for IT, frontline teams, and the business

For IT, standardizing on Workspace ONE shifted the teams from reactive support to proactive management. Centralized visibility and automated insights allow IT to identify and address issues earlier, reduce device-related incidents, and manage a rapidly growing shared-device fleet without increasing operational complexity.

At the same time, consistent security and compliance controls across all devices reduce risk and simplify auditing—giving IT greater confidence as the device fleet increases and diversifies. McMurray says: “Omnissa gives us the visibility and control we need to keep devices running, employees productive, and customers moving.”

For frontline agents, more reliable and consistently configured devices mean fewer interruptions during critical moments of the rental process. Shared Zebra handhelds are always ready for use, apps perform as expected, and security controls run quietly in the background. This ensures employees can focus on serving customers, checking in vehicles and preparing cars without delays or distractions.

For the business, these gains translate directly into operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and additional revenue. “By standardizing on Workspace ONE, we’ve reduced IT help desk tickets by about five percent and achieved more than $100,000 in annual savings,” says McMurray.

Faster check-ins and returns keep vehicles moving, reduce bottlenecks, and help Hertz serve more customers at peak times. “With Omnissa in place, every device directly supports revenue. If the device is working, we can rent and return cars without friction,” says McMurray. With a secure, scalable device management foundation in place, Hertz can continue to expand its mobile fleet with confidence.

Scaling smarter with intelligence and digital employee experience

Hertz plans to expand its use of Omnissa Intelligence for its digital employee experience (DEX) capabilities to gain deeper insight into performance and reliability across its device fleet and take proactive actions. “As we scale, having the right visibility and insight across our devices is critical—and Omnissa helps us stay ahead as our environment grows,” says McMurray.

By leveraging DEX for their shared mobile devices and corporate-owned Windows laptops, Hertz aims to give IT clearer visibility into how technology affects the productivity of frontline and knowledge workers alike. Together, these insights will support a more proactive, data-driven approach as the business continues to scale, keeping employees productive and customers happy.