National Petroleum News (NPN) has been the independent voice of the petroleum industry since 1909 as the opposition to Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. So, motor fuels marketing and retail is not just a sideline for us, it’s our core competency.
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FULLSERVICE Melding Technology and Human Leadership T THE SOURCE FOR PETROLEUM AND CONVENIENCE MARKETERS NPN highlight paths to success in this industry. In one article, we take a look at the realistic expectations with implementing technology in the fuel logistics process. In another article, we look at the 80-year-old success that is New York-based NOCO Energy (which appropriately also ran in our sister publication, Fuel Oil News). The technology piece addresses some of the limitations of current technology, but at the same time highlights its critical importance and covers some philosophy on how to implement that technology. I have admittedly been guilty over the years of probably expecting too much from technology developers. Getting rid of the fax machine, the note card, and the phone are laudable goals that can be achieved to a considerable degree. However, our industry is so independent and so decentralized that there are enormous challenges facing the full automation of business transaction data from the terminal to the retail underground storage tank. To explain some of the current challenges to employment, President Obama somewhat famously cited the advancement of technology eliminating many jobs, such as the ATM reducing the need for bank clerks. In our industry, technology may very well end up reducing headcount, but for the foreseeable future there will still be a clerk sitting in many operations moving stacks of paper and key entering data. That is not to say that technology is not critically important to surviving in today's high volatility, high price environment. In an industry that lives or dies on pennies and volume, technology that can cut a penny or two of expense out of the process can mean the difference between future growth and current stagnation or failure. And technology has come an enormous way. One of the individuals cited in the article, Bill Meek at Eagle Martin Oil Company, described how he had to work to develop a credit card processing application in-house in the mid-2000s because he couldn't find a suitable solution off-the-shelf. The technology today has made that not much of a concern; however, he noted that some marketers are still processing this data by hand. The NOCO Energy article focuses on the human dynamic for success in the industry. This company has seen three solid generations of effective leadership and strategic foresight. It has grown from a single coal delivery truck serving upstate New York to a major full focused regional energy company involved in operations as diverse as the reselling of electricity and natural gas. Although it wasn't the major focus of conversation during the interviews, I have no doubt that NOCO is not lagging behind where technology is concerned. Frankly, you could not have NOCO's diverse operations without quality technology. Similarly, both CarterEnergy and the Eagle Martin – two companies of significantly different scale highlighted in the technology article – are not lacking where the human element is concerned. As Kerry Oliver, now president of CarterEnergy, noted in our interview when asked what part of the technology implementation process was surprisingly easy: "The easy thing at Carter was to make the case that it was going to be expensive to do the project and buy the software, but you have to be there," she said. "You have to create that efficiency to take the cost out or you're not going to be able to compete with the guy that did go do it. Getting the case justified and getting the funds to do it is probably the easier part." The critical point is that the leadership at CarterEnergy knew enough about its operations, its future goals and needs to invest the capital appropriately and get the returns that were expected. All the technology in the world is fairly useless if it is not well thought out, well implemented and successfully serves the important support role to human leadership. n wo articles in this issue of Editorial office List Rental/REPRINTS EDITORIAL STAFF cnaughton@specialtyim.com 1030 W. Higgins, Suite 230 Park Ridge, IL 60068 Cheryl Naughton Phone: (678) 292-6054 Fax: (360) 294-6054 Editor-in-Chief Keith Reid Corporate Office kreid@specialtyim.com 1030 W. 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Postmaster: Send address changes to National Petroleum News, PO Box 4290, Port Jervis, NY 12771. Keith Reid EDITOR-IN-CHIEF kreid@specialtyim.com 4 MAY/JUNE 2013 NPN Magazine n www.npnweb.com