6 Surprises From the PDI Users Conference
By Jackson Lewis on Sep. 19, 2017SAN ANTONIO -- “There’s been lots of change in the business,” said Jimmy Frangis, CEO of PDI, from the general-session stage of the recent 2017 PDI Users Conference in San Antonio. Indeed, if the event had to have a theme, it would be change.
The enterprise software company for convenience retail and petroleum has been reimagined, becoming a multinational company with more than 400 employees across 50 countries serving more than 100,000 sites. Much of this growth was accomplished in the past year alone, and an estimated 1,000 attendees traveled to the conference to learn more.
PDI’s spurt of change reflects the changes in the industry. Foodservice is growing in prominence in convenience stores. Alternative fuels are being talked about now more than ever. The largest retailers in the space are quickly growing larger through mergers and acquisitions. PDI is facing these challenges with an injection of new services and manpower to equip customers with new tools and capabilities.
Click through for six updates from PDI’s Users Conference on how the company is evolving in a rapidly changing industry and world …
1. New identity
Growing from a North American business to a global company with six acquisitions of companies spread around the world sparked an opportunity for reflection and change, Frangis said.
“We’ve got new team members that are around the world. We wanted an identity [things] that could help unify our team,” he said. “Our solution is different. It’s a much broader set of solutions—a broader portfolio. We wanted a brand that could help describe and represent what we are today, but also what we aspire to be in the future.”
In a callback to PDI’s original logo from its start in 1983, the new logo represents the flexibility of PDI’s solutions and its global reach, according to a press release. The company’s new tagline is Enterprise Software Reimagined.
2. From many, one
With a global reach comes a focus on diversity. “How better to meet the needs of our customers in a worldwide, different environment than to have representatives of those communities on our team helping us develop the solutions?” said Chris Berry, PDI’s new chief technical officer, a recently added position to the PDI executive team.
Of the many reasons Berry was brought on the team, one was her past experience with M&A, making her an asset as the company redefines itself. When Berry walked onto the general-session stage during the conference, one of her first talking points was the importance PDI is placing on diversity.
“It’s incredibly important and it’s key to innovation,” said Berry. “A diverse team is a smarter and more creative team. If you bring people together with different perspectives and experiences, we’re going to get a better solution, and we’re often going to get that solution faster.”
3. To the cloud
Another point Berry made, and one that was brought up throughout the conference, is PDI’s ambition to eventually migrate all of its infrastructure and applications to the cloud. The company could not say when this transition would be complete but made it clear that the migration is a priority. The move to the cloud reflects a priority in ease of use and user friendliness.
“Our products have to be device agnostic, whether it’s a truck driver using the application on a tablet at the fueling station or an employee—probably a millennial—that is checking their schedule for the week,” said Berry. “They’ve got to be responsive, and they’ve got to be easy to use.”
4. Wholesale and logistics
Perhaps the most impactful update to PDI’s services is a new focus on wholesale and logistics, a new capability the company gained with its acquisition of Firestream Worldwide, among others. With the acquisition of Firestream came its CEO, Glenn Turner, now PDI’s senior vice president and general manager of wholesale and logistics.
In Turner’s address to conference attendees during the first day’s general session, he stressed the importance of efficiency in wholesale and logistics. “There is a burning platform for those of us that want to participate in the industry long term to be efficient, and to use technology and to use data. We cannot afford to be doing data entry,” said Turner. “We have to get into a mode where we’re using data and auditing after the fact.”
Turner then touched on new capabilities in PDI’s arsenal to address that need. “If you’re selling propane or heating oil in the service of providing home heat, that is now a capability that’s under the PDI roof that you can apply to your businesses,” he said. “We have degree-day forecasting for order management, budget billing for collecting payments from customers that are buying heating oil and propane from you and … inventory optimization.”
5. Advancing advocacy
With the acquisition of Pinnacle’s enterprise resource planning assets, PDI also gained Drew Mize, formerly of Pinnacle and now PDI’s senior vice president and general manager of retail. Mize, above, talked about the importance of supporting advocacy groups such as NACS and described new tools PDI is bringing to market to face challenges from regulations.
“Think about where we’d be with interchange fees today without NACS advocacy and without your help. Where would we be with outside EMV? We would already be paying fines for outside EMV. Tobacco: Would you even be selling tobacco today in your stores?” said Mize.
One example of tools to help retailers manage new regulations was a tool meant to make dealing with new menu regulations easier. “We’re helping you with item management, waste tracking; recently they added nutritional facts data into the pricebook because of the upcoming menu-labeling laws,” said Mize. “And at the end of that we’re able to provide ideal cost and margin reporting so you can continue to analyze your foodservice business and improve it over time.”
6. Avoiding disaster
Hurricane Irma, which hit Florida on Sept. 10, hung over the conference like a specter. Many of the speakers acknowledged its presence, along with the hope that those in its path, and those still recovering from Hurricane Harvey, would stay safe, dry and stable. With natural disasters in mind, Bo Harvey, PDI’s senior vice president and general manager of North America operations, shared a commitment to ensuring that customers can still function in a state of emergency.
“Your system’s got to be up and available so that you can run your business even as these natural disasters are happening,” said Harvey. “We’ve invested significantly in our hosting service to have multiple locations that are completely redundant feeding data back to one another to help ensure that business continuity.”
Temple, Texas-based PDI helps convenience-store retailers and petroleum wholesale marketers worldwide thrive in a digital economy with enterprise management software. PDI’s enterprise software, wholesale and logistics management software solutions and retail back office systems have been designed around the evolving needs of customers for more than 30 years.