Boyett Petroleum supplies its own Cruisers gasoline stations by buying fuel at the best price it can and delivering that gasoline in a timely manner. As an industry leader, Boyett thought they could extend that service and continue their tradition of providing excellent customer service to other station owners outside the Cruisers family.
Gas station owners, whether they own one station or a chain, have a lot to worry about. If owners can outsource buying fuel, they can focus on running their business.
Fuel is a commodity, and the price is constantly changing every hour of the day. It takes a lot of time and bandwidth to watch the price of fuel and make educated choices on when to buy and ship. This is where Boyett comes to the rescue of these station owners.
Boyett comes to the rescue!
Boyett’s Inventory Management service acts as a fuel buying agent for the station owners’ benefit. Boyett negotiates directly with refiners and brokers to ensure these stations have the lowest fuel costs possible each day. In fact, their team is looking at that fuel price on electronic boards in the office and making calls on where the price of fuel is…sometimes down to the second.
Then, the Boyett team ensures station owners’ fuel will get transported to their stations. Boyett makes sure this runs smoothly by reserving slots with trucking carriers.
Station owners don’t have to worry about hours of service and industry driver shortages. Boyett has done the worrying and with their negotiated carrier reservations slots, makes sure there are enough drivers, trucks, and tankers to handle the load.
Interview with Mark Goularte
This author had a chance to sit down with Mark Goularte, head of Inventory Management for Boyett Petroleum.
Mark let me know it’s not an easy job. “This is a 24/7 job, one that requires constant focus and attention to detail. With the price of fuel constantly changing, every little detail associated with the job is constantly changing as well. With the War in Ukraine raging on, the price of fuel has been very volatile lately, which has also made things more complicated in general.”
Mark doesn’t work alone. He’s got a team helping him out and he gave them a lot of credit. Mark says, “It takes about three months to train someone in all the little details that the whole job entails. A lot of things change…all the time. Employee stress and burnout are unfortunate byproducts of the industry. You’re dealing with a commodity where price is always fluctuating and you’re dealing with heavily regulated industries like gasoline and trucking on both a national and state level. There’s a lot of moving parts to any decision one makes at any given time. None of these potentially stressful additions to the job are Boyett issues; they’re industry issues.”
However, Mark talked a lot about how working for Boyett was different and unique in the industry…in a good way. Mark stressed that Dale Boyett cares about his employees and that Dale ran his company in an employee-appreciation focused way. In fact, Mark needed to cut our interview short to make the company-sponsored, on-site yoga session that day. That’s just one example of a positive, pro-employee activity that was taking place that week.
A positive company culture goes a long way with keeping people happy. Those small, daily and weekly company-sponsored activities make a difference when recruiting and keeping a team. Mark said, “When a good company culture starts from the top down, the whole company and his team feels the love and appreciates the good sentiments.”
The next time you fill up at a gas station, realize a lot of decisions have gone into buying and transporting that fuel before it hits the station. Chances are good that Boyett Petroleum was involved in that process.
Boyett Petroleum is a leader in extending their superior customer service to station owners through inventory management.
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