Like many industries, the petroleum marketer industry was dramatically affected by the onset of COVID-19. (see CANADA RETAIL FUEL CONSUMPTION 2022 in comments below).

Here are three business strategies that I think petroleum marketers should consider as they continue to navigate a business climate affected by COVID-19: 

1. Go paperless & invest in technology. The transition to remote work has made it critical for petroleum marketers to go paperless. My paperless clients had a smooth transition to a remote work environment because everything was already in their system. I also recommend going outside the box and looking at other remote technologies such as a cloud-based phone system. Make your laptop and your cellphone your office. 

2. Automate your processes. Manual data entry is costly and affects efficiency because there is also an employee shortage. Every company is at least working around 75% capacity due to employee shortages. You need to automate manual data entry to its fullest, including bank and payment integration. This kind of integration reduces my client’s month-end process from 15 days to one afternoon. The key is to do data entry once, which is possible with a fully integrated software like Datanova. 

3. Look at your data. Your data will tell you how you can be more efficient and improve your profit margins. There are reports in Datanova that can show you daily, weekly and monthly how much money you are losing (especially if you’re still thinking in terms of litres per cents or gallons per cents).