Tank Talk by Titan Cloud Software

From convenience store chains to fleets, companies in this industry deploy a wide range of specialized projects, software, and operations to ensure success. Titan Cloud's Chief Revenue Officer, John Donnelly, gathered a panel of Titan Cloud experts and industry professionals from the c-store and fueling sectors to dive into the enterprise support needed to make a business successful.

When it comes to environmental compliance, regulations continue to get more strict as companies and industries work to reduce their environmental impact.

A couple of months ago Titan Cloud sent the convenience store industry abuzz when they announced their acquisition of Environmental Monitoring Solutions, or EMS. For the last 25 years, EMS has supported fuel systems from retail petrol stations across Australia and EMEA markets. EMS has been a key industry player, offering leak detection, wetstock management, and risk management technology and project consultation among other services.

After years serving as Circle K’s Director of North American Environmental Shared Services, Brent Puzak has joined Titan Cloud as their new Vice President of Solutions Consulting. It was during his time with the global c-store chain that he realized how the data and information provided by Titan could be critical in assisting other compliance professionals such as himself.

Yesway’s Compliance Manager, Melissa Davis, spoke about the company’s partnership with Titan Cloud and how Titan’s solutions have made an overall positive impact on their business. With business operations in nine U.S. states, many local regulations to follow and different insurance guidelines to meet, Yesway faces daily challenges. “The biggest challenge we have is our rapid growth,” Davis said, noting that the solution they had been using was no longer adequate to meet the needs of an expanding business. “We had numerous spreadsheets and different databases,” Davis said. “We did not have departments synced up. We needed real-time knowledge of our compliance and access to all our data. Our tank monitor connectivity and feedback had delays, and our alarm management system was costly.” Davis and her team at Yesway realized they needed a new solution to manage compliance more efficiently and effectively. “We needed to find a platform that was cost-effective, worked with our existing portfolio of c-stores and equipment, and could both grow and adapt to regulatory changes as well as adding vendors and staff,” Davis said. "Yesway needed something flexible and customizable.” That platform was Titan Cloud. Listen in to find out more about how Titan helped Melissa solve these challenges and more during this episode of Tank Talk. “Switching compliance platforms can be daunting,” Davis said. “But Titan cloud was there to walk us through every step of the way and provide the customization we required.”

Director of Environmental and Fuel Services Terry Harrah, of CEFCO Convenience Stores, knows firsthand the benefits Titan Cloud’s solutions can bring to a business. Harrah’s responsibilities include fuel storage compliance, maintaining fuel quality and EMV software, and managing the work order systems. And he’s come to rely on Titan’s offerings to make things run smoothly. “We find Titan gives us an advantage over other systems that we’ve used in the past,” Harrah said. “Everything’s cloud-based. You can customize your alarms. And you’re not just tied to your computer. Titan’s a powerful tool that we use when we’re out in the field or on weekends. It will send us an alarm, an email, to let us know something is wrong that needs our attention. And, if you need to make a work order, it’s all cloud-based, so you can make that order off your phone.” Harrah mentioned CEFCO is using a new work order system through Titan Cloud, which makes the ability for a store to resolve issues faster than ever. It also gives stores more inventory management control and the ability to re-route work dispatches. With operations in six states, CEFCO needs to comply with various rules and regulations depending on location. “With Titan, we can customize each store, and the system will let us know through a dashboard of when certain requirements are due depending on which state the store is in,” Harrah said. This type of access and flexibility comes in handy when tank inspections come up. Not only will the system let a store know when a tank inspection is due, but it can also help schedule the inspection and get all the necessary documentation in place so it can be done quickly without the hassle or extra work. Catch up on every episode of Tank Talk here!

Very few companies are coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic stronger, but some have done the right things during the pandemic to position themselves to grow as we approach a new normal. Titan Cloud Software Chief Revenue Officer John Donnelly III is confident Titan is one of those groups. With many employees already working remotely, the day-to-day at Titan stayed relatively unchanged when shelter-in-place orders were enacted, and, with reasonable goals about the future, Titan is set have a strong close to the year and enter 2021 better than ever. “We just basically put things on hold and realized that you better improvise and adapt quickly, because, if you don’t, you’ll be in trouble. We believed early on that, if we didn’t do this and keep the pace and momentum going that we had before the pandemic started, we didn’t want to look back and say we made mistakes and stayed still and were caught flat-footed,” Donnelly said. “We feel like we’ve done a great job doing that, building demand for new customers and talking with our existing customers – probably even more than we already do. “I think, frankly, we’re going to emerge (even healthier).” Donnelly also said Titan and its partner M33 are keeping in mind that they’ll need to keep expectations realistic during the pandemic. However, that doesn’t mean thinking about new growth can totally grind to a halt. “In many ways, from a go-to-market perspective, we’ve been able to get closer to some of our customers and some of our prospects through this process,” he said. “So, while things have been delayed a bit and some of our growth plans had to be adjusted, we feel like we were able to still maintain that demand generation and continue to provide amazing thought leadership through many of the channels we chose to work through.”

On this episode of Tank Talk, a Titan Cloud podcast, host Daniel Litwin was joined by Titan Cloud Software’s Director of Product Management Clay Moore to discuss the ever-evolving world of retail fuel operation and the challenges and logistical pain points associated with the industry. Moore said retail fuel operators have plenty on their plates, including new regulations and compliance requirements, shifting customer expectations, and the impact of social media on the customer experience. “Needs in the industry are constantly changing…The customer fueling experience really drives the market regarding your business and sales,” Moore said. “And social media impacts every industry – years ago, it was all about who had the cheapest gas prices. Now, it’s all about [sharing] the customer experience.” Without proper oversight and tools to help make sense of vast amounts of data, operators are exposed to significant risk of regulatory violations, inefficiencies, inadequate release detection, and slow response to problems that do arise. Titan Cloud’s platform provides the visibility, insights, and reliability that help owners and operators address all these issues proactively. “In today’s world, having the latest information is key for making decisions,” Moore said. “One of the main factors in fuel management is having fast, dependable, and reliable visibility into inventories… [Our solution] is also able to provide analytics not just for fuel forecasting, but in better tank charts, root-cause analysis on alarms, and the ability to filter out the noise.”

What are the cloud solutions driving the retail and commercial fuel industry? How can fuel providers keep up with the latest information and trends and get advice from leaders in the field? Titan Cloud Software proudly introduces a new podcast designed to do just that, as Tank Talk will tackle these topics and the issues surrounding the fuel industry. David Freese, CEO and CPO at Titan Cloud Software, kicked off the first episode. Freese brings 20-plus years of experience improving and scaling technology businesses to Titan Cloud Software, and he approaches his role as Chief Product Officer (CPO) with equal enthusiasm to that of CEO. As Freese put it, Titan Cloud is a pure-play SaaS firm focused on facilities that have fuel. “We’re focused on high-ROI software solutions to improve end-customer fueling experiences, to minimize fuel variance and loss, and to reduce environmental risk,” he said. One of Freese’s goals is to get the industry as a whole to adopt more technology around analytics and provide best-in-class solutions to help them in these efforts. “There’s a lot of machine-to-machine, IoT data available,” Freese said. How to collect the data and analyze it effectively is where companies such as Titan Cloud come into play. What does Freeze look forward to on future episodes of Tank Talk? “Topics that drive the end-customer fueling experience will be valuable,” Freeze said. How providers can reduce environmental risk and cost is another vital topic worth discussion. Fuel variance, loss and leak detection was a third subject Freeze believed would generate great talks on future episodes.