Cathy Duncan, DataConnect product manager, DTN
Smarter Fuel Processing - Part II 
This is the second installment of a three-part series in which Cathy Duncan provides a realistic look at what marketers can expect from the process of integrating supplier data into their back-office systems. This series shares details on what it really takes to experience all the benefits of smarter fuel processing.
Part 1: Smarter Fuel Processing
"Fear less, hope more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; ... And all good things are yours." — Swedish Proverb
If one more phrase could be added to this old Swedish proverb, maybe it should be, "Do less, plan more." Doesn't every good general have a battle plan and every championship team have a strategy? Applying a little strategy to your fuel processing and automation projects may just help you win the war on inefficiency.
In the first installment of our series, we covered the first steps toward successfully automating data to get more from your staff and technology investments:
- Getting buy-in from employees
- Proper needs evaluation
- Exploring your options and ROI
If the result of that evaluation was a decision to move forward, your next most significant step should be to craft your game plan. Every good implementation is as good as its plan, and data integration projects are no exception.
Step One: Determine Reasonable Timelines for Your Projects
Having realistic expectations of the benefits of integrating fuel data will help keep your whole team focused during the process of implementation. Some projects are quick wins and can be implemented rapidly with little impact on your current operations, while others require more careful planning in order to minimize disruptions.
Determine what it will take to complete each step of your project:
- Does this project require purchasing additional software or hardware upgrades? If so, how will this impact other processes? Is there anything you can do in the short-term?
- Is special training or consulting required for this project? What does it take to make the training happen?
- What manpower is involved in the actual implementation? Will setup and testing of the new process require more time than your staff has to spare?
Once you have a handle on these pieces of your project, put together a project plan with reasonable milestones and concrete deliverables. Know which steps are dependent on someone or something else and ensure that you're managing these throughout the process. Everyone involved should be accountable for his or her part of the project.
Step Two: Ensure You Have Resources Available
One of the biggest pitfalls to successful implementation is not having the right level of employee involvement in a project. Even projects where outside consultants are hired — for instance your software vendor — still require knowledge and expertise of someone within your company. Lack of availability can have disastrous effects and potentially cause the entire project to fail. Yet by keeping a knowledgeable resource from within your company involved, you'll do a better job keeping the project manageable, on time and more importantly, on budget.
Even if your personnel resources are constrained with no time to spare, don't let this sway you from either committing resources or moving forward. Put on your strategy hat and start considering your options perhaps freeing resources to make your projects successful. Tackling an easy project first may free up enough time for your resources to focus on bigger projects that are more demanding.
Van De Pol Enterprises Inc., a multi-branded petroleum jobber in Stockton, Calif., did just that. Their first step was to automate their retail dealer network's credit card notification process. By signing up with a service from DTN that automatically faxes and e-mails daily credit card notices to their dealers, Van De Pol was able to immediately save a couple of hours a day in resource time. Not only did the company eliminate cutting, pasting and faxing to their branded dealers, they also freed up credit resources so they no longer had to deal with reconciling and disputed amounts.
Utilizing their hours recouped from dealer notifications, Van De Pol was able to dedicate these resources to tackling their next automation project: automation of credit card notices directly into their accounting package. This process would eliminate manually entering each dealer's daily credit cards to their accounts receivable account and be able to provide Van De Pol with up-to-the-minute, accurate customer account balances. The result? By building up to the projects that required more resource time, Van De Pol was able to move forward on even bigger automation projects — without a strain to their resources. Tom Van De Pol, manager, commercial sales, feels this is just the beginning. "We're going to be doing many more integration projects. We've started with what's readily available, but we're planning to push the envelope into what's possible."
By "doing less, planning more" you should find yourself in a much stronger position to successfully accomplish target projects on time and on budget. In the next and final installment of this series, we'll review other ways that marketers have overcome their technology challenges to gain smarter fuel processing.
With more than 20 years of accounting and business process experience in the energy sector, Cathy Duncan, a DTN product manager in wholesaler services, has helped more than 350 marketers integrate prices, invoices, credit cards and EFT draft notices into their backoffice systems — helping companies lower costs, improve operations management and shorten order-to-cash cycles. You can contact Cathy Duncan at Cathy.Duncan@DTN.com or (281) 370-8278. For more information on DTN, please go to www.DTN.com.
