Conexxus members convened at Dover Fueling Solutions’ (“DFS”) headquarters in Austin, Texas, at the end of August for their annual strategic planning conference. The event was sold out, with 40 members and staff participating in the four-day conference–the largest attendance for this exclusive meeting to date. Conexxus ensured that attendees had the opportunity to socialize and network. Guests also enjoyed a minor league baseball game sponsored by the host, DFS.
The conference started with store tours of technology-leading Texas Born (TXB) locations in the Austin area. On day two, attendees were shown DFS’ vision of the future of energy and consumer-facing technology, followed by an economic trend analysis presented by industry expert Dae Kim. Day three focused on emerging technologies and trends, such as AI, the Sunrise 2027 migration to 2D barcodes, and the opportunity of 8112 digital coupons to create industry access to the 300 billion coupons issued each year. The group heard expert insights on the state of and potential retail use cases for AI from Dr. Bruce Porter, chief science officer at SparkCognition and professor emeritus of Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence, University of Texas, Austin, and Dr. Alan Lockett, an AI researcher and entrepreneur. These presentations were all broken down into layman’s terms and provided actionable steps for our members.
“The interaction between retailers and partners was exceptional,” shared Jack Dickinson, business development and strategic account senior manager at DFS. “As we opened the event with conversations centered around the future of the forecourt and customer engagement, these dialogues yielded important insights from both the supplier and retailer perspectives. This strategic event is pivotal to setting goals and activities for Conexxus, while also highlighting emerging trends so members can evaluate, strategize or modify their technology initiatives. It was clear from talking with attendees that this year’s event successfully fulfilled all objectives.”
Day four focused on Conexxus’ strategy to meet the technology needs of the industry, with special consideration of the leading technologies presented over the previous few days. Going forward, Conexxus will add standards around AI tools, industry adoption of 8112, support NACS efforts on integrating EV charging networks and migration to Sunrise 2027–along with its core mission of emerging technology leadership, tools to modernize retailer operations and creating standards that greatly reduce the expense and risk of systems integration.
“The speakers and content were an excellent way to look at Conexxus’ activities over the next few years, in order to best serve our industry as its technology non-profit partner,” said Gray Taylor, executive director of Conexxus. “The future continues to come at us at a faster pace than ever, and Conexxus’ membership is focused on keeping convenience competitive.”
Attendee feedback was universally enthusiastic about the breadth and clarity of content, and the acquired understanding of future technologies and its value to retail.
Conexxus will welcome its membership back to this exclusive event next August, hosted by KRS in beautiful Twin Falls, Idaho.