Welcome to My World: An Interview with Marty Inkrott
Author:
August 2007
What is your responsibility at Speedway SuperAmerica (SSA)?
I am Vice-President of Information Technology. In that capacity, I am responsible for all technology at the company, from each of our 1600 stores located in nine mid-western states, to our Region and Division offices, to the headquarters located in Enon OH. Technology components include the magnetic stripe card readers at the pump, the Point of Sale (POS) terminals in the store, the backoffice computer for store management, biometric finger scanning for clock in/out, hand-held scanners for inventory management, electronic tank guaging for automatic dispatching of fuel to the store, ATMs, Financial Kiosks, the store network to transmit information between the store and corporate office, credit switch in Enon for bank and prepaid card authorization, and a myriad of backend systems that provide the information necessary to run the business efficiently and effectively.
How did you get to that position?
I've been in the IT group at Marathon Oil (SSA's parent company) for over 25 years. I was the project manager on several Speedway; then known as EMRO Marketing Company; initiatives back in the 1980's so I was very familiar with the company. I held several other IT management positions throughout the years including Refining & Marketing Applications, Infrastructure Systems Management, and Corporate Applications all in Findlay, OH. I then spent 4 years in Littleton, CO with our Exploration & Production Technology group, then back to Findlay again leading our e-Commerce and Web Development teams. When the position at SSA was offered to me, I was very excited about the new opportunity and to work at a 'smaller', entrepreneurial company ($9 billion revenue).
How does the IT operations for a retail gas company compare to other IT operations? What are some circumstances that make your industry unique
There is a lot of technology in this business. Our customers are exposed to this technology with every visit, so we have to be fast and accurate. Think about it. You swipe your Speedy Rewards card and we add points acquired during this visit to your balance. We rollback the pump price when required. We also check to see if you qualify for any Speedy Rewards or Club coupons and print them...all in the span of a few seconds. We do similar things with bank and prepaid cards. Dealing with fraud and theft is also a challenge in this business so we automate and insert controls wherever we can to minimize those opportunities. We maintain item-level inventories for automated re-ordering...to minimize out of stocks. We sell hundreds of items in our stores so this is no small task. We have a data warehouse where we manipulate terabytes of data that we utilize to better manage our business and develop 'personalized' offerings for our customers based on what they buy. Our company slogan is Friendly, Fast and Clean. IT embraces this by making technology easy to use/intuitive, fast, and reliable.
Retail means tight margins. How does IT help Speedway SuperAmerica understand and track those margins?
We have interactive systems in place that track margins and profitability for each store. Gasoline margins are driven by many factors outside of our control, so our focus is to entice our customers to come inside the store to buy higer-margin items
What is the IT environment at Speedway SuperAmerica? Do you buy or build?
As a rule, we try to buy where we can to improve efficiencies/productivity and build for competitive advantage. Building may actually mean integrating software into our environment in such a way that it drives competitive advantage.
What will be different about Speedway SuperAmerica’s IT operations next year? In 3 years?
We're currently going through a huge transformation that will replace our POS and backoffice software. These initiatives provide substantial business economics as they enable us to implement new programs/functionality faster and more efficiently. In the 3-year horizon, I see SSA making major strides in our legacy system modernization efforts...and of course we will continue to deliver new functionality to drive competitive advantage.
What have you learned from networking with your peers in the Dayton region?
Some of the best things I have learned are the different ways IT shops drive value to their organizations. Many are infrastructure-related, but many are also process improvement and project management related. The Dayton CIO Council has been a good forum for sharing ideas and seeing what other shops are doing. Similar to buying packaged software, maybe we can help each other from 'reinventing the wheel'.
