Nouria Energy Charts a Roadmap Guided by Technology
ARLINGTON, Texas — It's an age-old question in retail: How do you attract new customers? The demographics may change and the answer may change, but the question remains the same.
According to Doug New, chief information officer at Nouria Energy and the 2024 Conexxus Hall of Fame inductee, Generation Z and younger consumers differ from their older counterparts, but whether technology is driving the cultural change or culture is driving the technological change is up for debate.
Sitting down with Conexxus Executive Director Gray Taylor, New said it's most likely a combination of both. "How do you get the attention of younger consumers?" he posed. "That is one thing we are struggling with."
There was a time not that long ago when the convenience channel referred to its traditional customers as "Bubba" and wondered how to bring more female shoppers into the store. It's a similar situation now, New explained, except Gen Z doesn't want to come into the store; they want convenience brought to them.
[Read more: Nouria Energy Rolls Out Revamped Mobile App]
As Nouria Energy moves forward with this new customer base to capture, the Worcester, Mass.-based company is trying to become more data-driven, but it needs to get better at understanding how to use the data. The biggest challenge to data awareness will be cultural, according to the CIO.
"Our people are very smart and good at what they do, but they have never before been asked to [interpret] the data," New noted, describing the data journey as a long one.
And as Taylor pointed out, "We can keep serving up more and more data, but it is a waste of money if we don’t know how to use it."
Looking at technology overall, New called out several items that he finds interesting:
- Identity;
- Artificial intelligence/computer vision/heat maps and learning where customers are going in the store and what they are doing;
- Consumer and retail media networks; and
- Electric vehicles (EVs) and EV charging.
Nouria Energy, which has a network of approximately 170 convenience stores, is also looking at alternative point-of-sale (POS) systems and along with that comes a discussion about cloud-based solutions. A problem with POS systems, according to New, is the time to market for new features. "Cloud will allow us to get around that," he said, adding that it allows for quicker adoption.
However, cloud-based solutions come with their own concerns. "There is so much opportunity, but there are some concerns. For example, we are not in control of our own security," he said.
Also, as the company's marketing team requests more data to engage with younger consumers, "the more data you collect, the greater the risk to protect that data," New pointed out.
The 2024 Conexxus Annual Conference is taking place April 28 through May 2 at Live! By Loews Arlington. The 2025 Conexxus Annual Conference will move to the beginning of the year when it comes to Tucson, Ariz., at the end of January.
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