Parkland Corp. is outsourcing most of its IT roles to Accenture, a global professional services company. The change resulted in Parkland laying off 100 IT employees, 20 of whom will join Accenture, Parkland’s Vice President of Corporate Affairs Simon Scott told CSP.
Scott said the layoffs were not associated with the other cost-cutting layoffs that the convenience-store retailer and fuel distributor has made over the past year. The Calgary, Alberta-based company has laid off more than 300 staff members since January 2023, it said in its second-quarter 2024 earnings report.
- Parkland Corp. is No. 38 on CSP’s 2024 Top 202 ranking of U.S. convenience-store chains by store count.
Parkland’s 2024 full-year adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) guidance is between $1.9 and $2 billion. It’s targeting $2.5 billion of EBITDA by 2028, Scott said, and everything Parkland does—from divesting in certain assets, to its retail strategy and more—is in service of that strategy.
As part of its growth aspirations, Scott said Parkland can do much better in terms of supporting its employees with very efficient, scalable and reliable IT services, “and that has been the genesis of our partnership with Accenture,” he said.
“We will grow significantly, and we're taking steps that will make that easier and more efficient—and all in service of our employees,” Scott said.
Parkland is in the process now of transitioning to Accenture. Pierre Costa, Parkland Corp.’s chief information officer, told CSP some of Parkland’s IT staff will be staying on, and Accenture will be handling more of the day-to-day IT services.
Partnering with Accenture will help ensure Parkland’s employees and customers are getting the best services when it comes to anything from a point-of-sale system freezing to responding to tech support tickets quicker to better leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), Costa said.
Parkland has 210 company-operated c-stores in the United States, with about 450 dealer sites. It has about 4,000 retail and commercial locations total.
Accenture helps organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance services, according to its website. It is based in Dublin and has offices around the world.
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