When data drives, business thrives: discover how PDI Technologies’ solutions support the convenience retail to the quick service restaurant sectors
Founded in 1983, PDI Technologies (PDI) helps convenience retail, petroleum wholesale businesses, specialty retailers, and quick service restaurants around the globe increase efficiency and profitability by securely connecting their data and operations. Its people-first approach helps customers in all aspects of their business, from understanding consumer behavior to simplifying the technology ecosystem across the supply chain. Passionate about its customers’ success and ability to deliver exceptional customer experience, PDI is focused on connecting convenience around the globe.
“We primarily work with convenience retail and petroleum wholesale businesses, as well as adjacencies like quick service restaurants, fast casual, and specialty retail,” begins Linnea Geiss, PDI Chief Operating Officer. “We strive to increase our customers’ efficiency and profitability in a variety of ways, including securely connecting data and operations, and managing back-office systems and customer-facing programs, such as loyalty and rewards programs.”
Transformative technology 
In 2015, PDI kicked off a major phase of growth. Today, the company works with over 200,000 retail sites across nearly 70 countries. This rapid growth has also expanded PDI’s presence in the quick service restaurant footprint.
“When I think about the markets in which we operate,” Linnea continues, “I’d say, in general, they’re expanding to meet changing consumer demand and consequently, navigating a wide range of technological advancements. Convenience retail is really a great test bed for the wider industry. More than 83 percent of convenience shoppers make unplanned purchases when they’re in the store. As a result, convenience retail is often the fastest, most efficient, and cost-effective way to introduce new products.
“The sector is also experiencing considerable digital transformation, which was accelerated by Covid. Additionally, a fascinating trend is personalization, where we’re seeing AI-driven consumer recommendations. We’re also seeing a convergence of convenience retail and quick service restaurants unlike ever before,” Linnea elaborates.
“Technology has changed the way we do everything, not just in this market, but in our daily lives. For convenience retail and quick service restaurants, the contactless checkout and the self-service kiosk are incredibly important advances, and leveraging AI to create a more robust customer experience has been monumental. While we’re embracing all this connected technology, it’s equally crucial to ensure we’re adopting enhanced cybersecurity measures to mitigate greater risk.
“At PDI, we integrate AI throughout our products and daily operations, we embrace automation to increase operational efficiencies. For instance, point of sale is an important technology for both quick service restaurants and convenience retail. Likewise, we use machine learning to help detect instances of compromised security and streamline our automated and real-time responses to threats.
“Data is at the center of all these technology innovations. We’re trying to provide our customers with real-time data to better optimize their operations. For example, during extreme weather events, our data can track the impact of power outages, so our customers can react appropriately, even if they don’t have eyes and ears out in the field at their remote sites. Consumer experience is another area where we’re doing a lot with data. When you think about personalized marketing campaigns, it’s all about leveraging data to provide a better consumer experience, which in turn improves brand loyalty and makes our customers more profitable.”
Linnea shares that in the US there are around 150,000 convenience retail sites and that approximately 90,000 of those are independent small business operators. “When you consider the number of transactions that occur at those sites, that information is invaluable to consumer-packaged goods providers that want to understand buying patterns and retailers that want to tap into brand spending,” she explains. “One of our quick service restaurant customers is a security customer and we’ve been able to leverage deep data to help them deploy customized protection systems that reduce their IT workload and speed up decision making.
“Another important area in which we’re assisting our clients is labor. There’s an ongoing labor shortage in both the convenience retail and quick service restaurant sectors. The industry is struggling to recruit and retain employees, so it’s essential that we deliver a great employee experience that makes it easier for employees to onboard and operate technology more efficiently. Stores generally don’t have an IT expert on site, which is why it’s essential that we provide the tools and services to fill in the gaps. One way for businesses to differentiate their brand and attract customers is by adopting new technology to streamline their operations. PDI solutions are designed to simplify operations and reduce labor costs, which tend to account for around 35 percent of a restaurant’s revenue spend.
“There’ll undoubtedly be a continued goal to deliver frictionless experience for both employees and customers, and while that may not necessarily mean contactless, it always means delivering efficiency. We’ll also see a continued push for cloud technology. The cloud negates the need for on-site technology, thereby driving agility while reducing redundancy and expense. By delivering fully managed services, we remove the burden from our clients so they can concentrate on what they do best.”
Securing future success
Looking to the future, Linnea shares details of PDI’s offerings. “We’ve developed solutions for inventory management and supply chain optimization that are helping fast casual restaurants reduce food waste, the costs of which amount to $25 billion annually. We’re currently working on continuing to pull in data sets and combine them in even more meaningful ways that provide invaluable insights. In terms of our own organization, we’re migrating more of our own technology to the cloud. Just recently, we acquired a company called Nuspire, a leading managed security services provider.”
This acquisition is the first expansion for PDI’s Security Solutions segment since launching its cybersecurity and managed network services business segment in 2020. In addition to providing a wide range of cybersecurity services for convenience stores and gas stations, PDI helps to reduce network complexity and enhance security for quick service restaurants, fast casual dining, and other restaurant and specialty retail locations. In particular, Linnea cites the company’s extensive security portfolio that includes managed detection and response services, along with managed services for a cloud-based firewall platform, 5G Internet, and robust Wi-Fi connectivity. “We’re super excited about that acquisition,” she continues, “because it’s going to accelerate our cybersecurity road map and bring more value to our customers.
“We’re a 40-year-old business, and that means we have deep market knowledge and extensive relationships with our customers. These long-term relationships allow us to learn from what’s happening in the market to deliver the right solutions with data that’s effective, timely, and accurate. According to a McKinsey report, data-driven organizations are 23 times more likely to acquire customers and six times more likely to retain those customers. The market increasingly understands the value of data and the power of turning it into meaningful insights that are reshaping the sector,” she elaborates.
“We’re very excited about bringing our solutions and expertise to quick service restaurants. We want to partner with more food and specialty retail customers, as those verticals operate in a very similar way to convenience retail,” Linnea concludes. “We believe we can help those sectors enhance their customer loyalty and increase profitability in an increasingly competitive marketplace.”