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Unlocking Revenue Growth Fuel Rite Case Study

Background

Hightowers Petroleum Co, the largest minority-owned business in Greater Cincinnati, Ohio, is a wholesale fuel distribution company with revenues of more than $400 million. They are recognized throughout North America for their customer service, integrity, creative fuel distribution model and expert handling of complex upstream and downstream issues.

Their services include:

  • Bulk Fuel Delivery
  • Emergency Fuel
  • Fleet Cards
  • Supply Chain Management
  • Inventory Management
 

They provide services to 35+ eminent customers including Fortune 500 companies like AT&T and Nissan. Along with this, they are associated with gas station providers like Race Trac, Kwik Trip, Raceway, etc. with approximately 16,000 gas stations spread across North America.

Challenge

As a fleet card issuing company, Hightowers Petroleum provides its customers’ fleet drivers with cards that guarantee an additional discount at any of the client’s affiliated gas stations. 

Traveling interstate, is difficult for the fleet driver to discover and keep track of these affiliated gas stations. With customers having an average of 4-5k fleet drivers and no direct contact between the client and the fleet drivers, interaction with the users of their fleet cards is hard to achieve and currently non-existent. This lack of communication further complicates the problem of directing fleet drivers to affiliated gas stations and results in the client losing their part of the incentive on gas station usage. This translates to an opportunity to earn approximately 10% of the refuelling cost per month per driver which is currently lost. 

Hightowers Petroleum engaged VDart Digital to develop a digital solution to enable these fleet drivers to navigate to the affiliated gas stations so that they stop losing out on revenue in their fleet card business.

Solution

VDart Digital solved this problem through an easy-to-use mobile app which will display the affiliated gas stations by just a click of a button.

Gas stations are displayed to drivers in the following ways :

Text-Based Search: When the driver is aware of the name or address of the preferred gas station, he can use the app to find and navigate to it.

 

Proximity Alerts: Every time a driver is coming close to an affiliated gas stations, he will be alerted via a system notification in case he needs to refuel.

Gas Station Near Me: When the driver needs to refuel and wants to locate all the nearest preferred gas station, he can do so by just pressing a button in the app.

Along with this, the features of the app not only navigate the user to the gas stations but also provide an interface between the client and the end users of their fleet card product. This would be useful to understand what problems end users are facing on a daily basis. It is the first step towards digitalizing their fleet card offering.

The app also offers personalization for each fleet driver based on the respective customer they are associated with and is developed in such a way that it works smoothly in the background as well without draining the battery life and other mobile resources.

AWS Cloud Service

All the app functionalities are managed through the server hosted on Amazon Web Services. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud and Amazon Route 53 are used to provide a highly scalable and secure cloud service

Value

  • Additional monthly recurring revenue through 40% increased usage of preferred gas stations bringing in approximately 10% of refuelling cost per driver.
  • The app makes the companies reach better and creates a portal for it to advertise and connect itself directly to the user.
  • Benchmark for the company’s digital progress and a vital differentiator in attracting new customers

Tech Stack

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The customer is a $200M+ Minority Business Enterprise that offers bulk fuel delivery for automotive manufacturers, fleet owners, and emergency vehicle assistance. They have supplied materials such as crude oil, liquefied natural gas, diesel exhaust fuel, additives, and lubricants for over 30+ years. They are affiliated with the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), National Petroleum Council, National Black Caucus of State Legislators, and various other organizations. The client was won several awards over the years; most recently they have received awards such as the 2019 General Motors Supplier of the Year, 2018 Duke Energy Supplier Excellence Award, and 2018 Top Diversity Performer Platinum Award General Motors.

The Problem

The client manages several fleets that deliver materials in all 50 states in the US. They had the original idea of creating an IT-based solution that would help the “uberization” of their fleets’ dispatch. The goal was to create a system that helps automate dispatches and increase speed and efficiency for their end clients. The solution would have to optimize routes based on stations where the fleet receives promotional discounts on refueling while maintaining the shortest distance to the end client location. By doing that, the delivery speed increases, and the cost of delivery decreases, both of which impact customer success for their end client. This requires an end-to-end solution by integrating the client’s database of preferred refueling stations to a mobile app that would relay the information to all the drivers in real-time and provide data to the operational leadership team to understand trends for future optimization.

The Solution

VDart Digital came into this role as an advisor first, solution provider second. The first step that we took was to understand the IT infrastructure in place and understand what alternative solutions would look like before creating something from scratch. We make it a policy here at VDart Digital to utilize the best tool instead of off-the-shelf solutions previously used. We developed the database architecture, mobile app design, and functionality and data dashboards blueprints based on the client’s current infrastructure. The database of preferred refueling stations would frequently change, so our database had to update and relay the information simultaneously. Tools such as Google Maps and Apple Maps did not have sufficient capabilities to deliver this type of request, so we had to create our own. We incorporated a blend of PHP, AWS, MongoDB, Java, NodeJS, and MySQL to provide this solution. The mobile app is available on both Android and iOS. When it came to pricing and Result The design workshop was completed within one day with the stakeholders and SMEs ranging from C-Level Executives to their Operational teams. We delivered the minimal viable product in 2weeks, with user journeys, screen-flows, and began testing. Based on this quick turnaround and competitive pricing, VDart Digital is now in partnership with the client to deliver further upgrades to our recommended solution. This includes adding and IoT Device to track the fleet’s maintenance, driver trends, customer behavior, and enhance safety compliance. adoption of the technology, that’s when our advisory role turned into a partnership role. For many years now, VDart has been a part of NMSDC and GMSDC. These organizations have emphasized the call to action for Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs) to work with other MBEs. We understood that the client wanted an innovative solution created by a world-class technology provider. However, being an MBE, we here at VDart understood that we need to make sure the revenue shouldn’t be our top concern. We prioritized work within their budget while providing the same level of team support, collaborative work sessions, and continued maintenance and upgrades without fluctuating in the price. We understood that their success would ultimately be the success for various Fortune 100 companies, and this opportunity shouldn’t be revenue-driven, but rather purpose-driven.

Result

The design workshop was completed within one day with the stakeholders and SMEs ranging from C-Level Executives to their Operational teams. We delivered the minimal viable product in 2weeks, with user journeys, screen-flows, and began testing. Based on this quick turnaround and competitive pricing, VDart Digital is now in partnership with the client to deliver further upgrades to our recommended solution. This includes adding and IoT Device to track the fleet’s maintenance, driver trends, customer behavior, and enhance safety compliance.

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