SAN ANTONIO – With more than 500 convenience retailers and petroleum marketers in attendance, technology provider PDI saw record-breaking attendance numbers at its annual users’ summit last week, where officials spoke about the latest version of its core product, Enterprise 8.
One of the newer aspects of the enterprise software is enhanced market-basket and transactional-database capabilities, says Austin Skaggs (pictured), vice president of marketing for PDI, Temple, Texas. Primarily done to help comply with major tobacco manufacturers’ requests for transactional data, the software can now properly format that data in the necessary ways, he said.
The conference featured speakers and workshops designed to train attendees on the features of PDI solutions. Skaggs told CSP Daily News the meeting’s major themes included POS data management and their developments in that area, plus how to maximize operations efficiences with PDI Enterprise 8 and PDI services, which give retailers the ability to turn many of their current automated processes over to PDI. One such service was handling pricebook tasks, Skaggs said.
“We have a team of over 25 people whose sole job is pricebook maintenance,” Skaggs said. “Things [retailers] would normally do in their system, we can handle so they can focus on maximizing margin and creating marketing and promotion strategies.”
Company officials also talked about PDI’s recent acquisition of Intellifuel, Titusville, Fla., which handles downstream petroleum and biofuels processes. Skaggs said the acquisition would help customers who deal with wholesale fuels pull orders into the PDI system, with in-field personnel report updates available on their iPads or hand-held devices.
For Jason Collins, information technology director for Englefield Oil, Heath, Ohio, the Intellifuel announcement was welcome news. “It shows that PDI is focused on growing and looking into the future,” he told CSP Daily News.
He said his company intends to implement PDI’s Workforce and Petronet products in the coming months. “Of all the industry events that I attend each year, the PDI users’ conference provides the best conversation and networking,” Collins said. “I get just as much out of the networking as I do attending all of the hands-on classes put on by PDI.”
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