Unified standards help the industry move from proprietary to open solutions.
By Keith Reid
“They say God made man, but Sam Colt made them equal.” This quote referenced the original Colt Single Action Army revolver and how it leveled the playing field in the Wild West. Technology does the same for convenience retailers and petroleum marketers. A large operation has a lot of advantages with economy of scale. A small operation has advantages like flexibility. But the efficient use of technology can greatly level the playing field in both directions, addressing shortcomings and amplifying advantages.
Conexxus (originally PCATS) was created as an offshoot of NACS as a non-profit, member-driven technology organization dedicated to the development and implementation of standards, technologies innovation and advocacy for the convenience store and retail fueling market. Conexxus membership collaborates on key present and future industry challenges and innovations. Its efforts improve profitability by reducing the cost of IT ownership and improving the competitiveness of its members.
Fuels Market News Magazine interviewed Gray Taylor, Conexxus executive director, for a rundown on the organization and how it supports the industry.
What prompted the formation of Conexxus?
Back in 2003 the NACS board said technology is interesting, but if the market really values supporting technology development, it would be willing to pay for it independently. NACS is an advocacy organization, and the decision was made that an independent but convenience-focused organization would be most effective for exploring those needs. So, the Petroleum Convenience, Alliance for Technology Standards (PCATS) was born. NACS president and CEO Henry Armour was one of those who were really driving this.
I was involved from the start while working for an industry technology vendor. I can tell you what my motivations were. We had an excellent POS system, and it controlled all the fuel pumps, but getting a connection to the back office, card readers, networks—those were all huge tasks that were actually more business oriented than technical in nature. Back then, it was tough, as all the solutions tended to be proprietary. We’re used to plug-and-play today but that was not the case with industry solutions unless the solutions were from the same companies. It was a major IT project to link things together, and retailers were looking for solutions that would easily allow them to bring other systems online.
To the credit of the vendors in the industry, they all stepped up and said, my core business is POS, or a back office or whatever. I think my solution is the best, and I would be better off if I could connect more easily to other solutions. So, it was really a matter of necessity from both a retail and a vendor standpoint.
The other thing we realized was that there was no facility within NACS to look at the tech future. Our Connexxus Innovation Research Committee is made up of nothing but retailers, and probably the most successful thing from the committee is the Conexxus Roadmap. It looks at a 10-year horizon and clarifies what retailers are seeing on the horizon. These are areas where the industry can prepare today instead of reacting tomorrow.
What prompted the name change to Connexus?
Well, I got tired of my kids laughing at the place I worked at—PCATS. (It did sound funny, if you think about it.) I started thinking, unless you know what it stood for it doesn’t say anything about what we do. We did a massive rebrand. We brought in a consultant, and that’s where we came up with “Connexus.” And it’s a play on words obviously—nexus and connections. So, “Connexus” really summed it all up.
What is the envelope of technologies and solutions that Connexus covers?
The best way I can describe it is we’re kind of an opening flower. We focus on the middle of the flower, how a fuel dispenser talks to a POS which talks to a back office and the stuff that is contained within the store. We’re working on external connections. As an example, one of the things we’re working on is how do we facilitate third-party delivery in an integrated fashion that enhances customers’ experience.
What have been some of the organization’s major accomplishments?
Probably our major accomplishment is we did the first mobile platform, and I don’t know of anybody else who’s come out with mobile payments. We had that around 2016, and that’s the standard used by most of the major oils.
Another major accomplishment would be our loyalty interface, which saw its first version back in 2010. And we’re adding new products. The industry will be able to take the new version of digital coupons that are fraud proof. That’s an infrastructure that the big box and the drugstore guys are going with, and our standard has held up so well that we’re using that standard to take those coupons. That’s going to allow the industry to accept over $300 billion worth of new coupons.
We’re actively working on what we call a data dictionary, which sounds dry, but as we got into enterprise and disparate systems, we needed to define things like what a fuel sale was. We’re up to about 800 definitions.
Is there any retail crossover beyond the convenience sector?
We’ve got some overlap with the independent grocery stores. They’re not convenience stores, but they have huge inventories, and they also sell fuel. They sell a lot of fuel. So, we’re seeing some work there with the POS. A lot of people are just coming in to work with our forecourt standards. We have reached out to chain drug and we’re actively reaching out for a deeper relationship with the smaller independent drug, grocery and dollar stores.
You have a mixed board with the retail sector and the vendor sector. What are the benefits that model brings to the table?
The original premise—which remains—is everybody joins and participates as an equal. The only place where retailers play exclusively is the retailer business requirements (RBR) committee. As a former vendor, that is valuable because that committee is the voice of your customer. You can pitch a standard, but it must go through the RBR, which is the first litmus test as to whether the industry’s going to buy it. So, if you pitch something and they turn it down, then you’re probably better off going back and reevaluating that product. So they’re kind of gatekeepers. But every other thing can be led by a vendor. And it’s interesting, because the vendor-customer relationship tends to drop off when they’re in committee work.
Describe the process, from when somebody proposes a standard until you’ve signed off on it.
A proposed standard would be presented to the appropriate committee. Let’s say that we wanted to support a standard for Internet of Things around an HVAC system. That would go to the device integration committee. And that committee would come to a consensus that this is something we wouldn’t mind working on over the next 12 months. We have some other things, such as a checkoff of the data security committee to make sure that we’re not creating a standard that creates a data or security problem. And then that is presented to the RBR. If the RBR says yes, you come in with a business requirements document and those types of things and then the committee can take that over. It works closely with the standards quality assurance (SQA) group so that every standard is consistent in format.
How does the conflict resolution process work in the process?
First, if it doesn’t pass RBR, that doesn’t keep a vendor from moving ahead and coming up with a proprietary interface. If it makes it through RBR, it’s very much like Congress. There’s a lot of debate and they figure it out. And if it doesn’t get figured out, it doesn’t make it out. The sausage making can be easy. It depends on if everybody agrees with the use cases upfront. But it can also be difficult. One of the things that we really protect, and where potential conflict can arise, is companies that come in inadvertently with intellectual property. We’ve never had anybody successfully do that, because in our bylaws you give an automatic grant to all Connexus members.
What type of retailers are you looking for?
We’ve got a sliding scale membership, and you can be a gold, full voting member with equal rights to the largest chains for $1,600 a year. What we’re really looking for is input. I don’t care if a person isn’t a technologist. In fact, we have lots of technologists. What we really need are people who have a pain point and can express it so it can be addressed.
We need your support. So, join, support Conexxus and get your voice heard and your problems solved.
