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Microsoft 365 Powers Frebloom Marine’s Operational Excellence Customer Name: Frebloom Marine Solutions Industry: Marine Industry Location/Country: Lagos, Nigeria Solution: Microsoft...
Transforming Operational Efficiency with Pinnacle Oil and Gas’s Online Ordering Solution
Customer
Pinnacle Oil and Gas Limited
Industry
Energy
Solution
Web-based Ordering Portal
Region
Lagos, Nigeria
Conceptualized and built by Nigerians, Pinnacle Oil & Gas Ltd started in 2004 with a focus on providing affordable access to petroleum products. The business primarily supplies petroleum and chemical products to wholesalers and retailers of all kinds of petroleum products. Their services include storage, intake/offtake, logistics & haulage, and petroleum service stations. Their network of filling stations and storage facilities serves both retail and industrial customers.
In the past twenty years, Pinnacle Oil & Gas has gained a significant market share in the downstream sector of its industry maintaining and expanding their value chain through excellent service delivery, customer satisfaction, and constructive partnerships. With the goal to be recognized as the largest and most dominant service provider in the Nigerian Oil & Gas sector, Pinnacle sought to improve accessibility to their products and services.
The Pain Points
Practically every industry in Nigeria is heavily dependent on electricity. With the nation navigating the endemic challenge of epileptic power supply, alternative energy sources to power machinery are highly sought after. Pinnacle meets this need by receiving petroleum vessels and offloading them through Single Point Mooring (SPM) and Conventional Buoy Mooring (CBM) systems. From receipt of the vessels, their million-liter contents are funneled across the country. Due to the scale of operations, there are bound to be challenges that technology could easily resolve.
Pinnacle observed that their traditional method of receiving manual orders for products was causing revenue losses due to the time-consuming process and the inefficiencies with that path. Many orders were made in-person, and with overwhelmed staff, order processing and fulfillment experienced delays. With a product catalogue that contained petrol, diesel, aviation fuel, lubricants, cooking gas, kerosene, and more, clients mostly had to visit a station to place requests for common but essential products. This automatically limited accessibility to organizations and individuals in remote or high-demand areas. It impacted customer satisfaction and retention due to less convenience, especially in moments of limited supply of petroleum products.
A further overarching concern was the absence of a centralized, scalable data infrastructure. Without this cloud-based system, it was more challenging to manage data from orders, payment, and customer behaviour/activity. A centralized data infrastructure simplifies the process of efficiently managing and distributing resources, scaling operations, and gaining real-time insights from transactional data. All of this is important for a petroleum company as it is a limited resource and must be handled and utilized efficiently.
The Pain Points
Practically every industry in Nigeria is heavily dependent on electricity. With the nation navigating the endemic challenge of epileptic power supply, alternative energy sources to power machinery are highly sought after. Pinnacle meets this need by receiving petroleum vessels and offloading them through Single Point Mooring (SPM) and Conventional Buoy Mooring (CBM) systems. From receipt of the vessels, their million-liter contents are funneled across the country. Due to the scale of operations, there are bound to be challenges that technology could easily resolve.
Pinnacle observed that their traditional method of receiving manual orders for products was causing revenue losses due to the time-consuming process and the inefficiencies with that path. Many orders were made in-person, and with overwhelmed staff, order processing and fulfillment experienced delays. With a product catalogue that contained petrol, diesel, aviation fuel, lubricants, cooking gas, kerosene, and more, clients mostly had to visit a station to place requests for common but essential products. This automatically limited accessibility to organizations and individuals in remote or high-demand areas. It impacted customer satisfaction and retention due to less convenience, especially in moments of limited supply of petroleum products.
A further overarching concern was the absence of a centralized, scalable data infrastructure. Without this cloud-based system, it was more challenging to manage data from orders, payment, and customer behaviour/activity. A centralized data infrastructure simplifies the process of efficiently managing and distributing resources, scaling operations, and gaining real-time insights from transactional data. All of this is important for a petroleum company as it is a limited resource and must be handled and utilized efficiently.
The Pivotal Moment
Determined to restructure their processes for optimal output, Pinnacle sought the expertise of Reliance Infosystems. Our dedication, confidence, proven track record and international good standing as a leader in the IT industry positioned us as the most suitable partner for Pinnacle Oil & Gas. Over the term of our engagement, we carefully explored Pinnacle’s challenges and proposed a web-based ordering portal designed to streamline their product ordering process for the option of online procurement.
Welcoming Transformation
The ideal solution we proposed to Pinnacle’s stakeholders was a custom web-based ordering portal. This solution enables customers to place orders for their products directly from the website, eliminating the pressure of in-person purchases. To make this system viable, several components had to come together. We determined Microsoft Azure as the most competent host for the solution as it is highly reliable and makes customer management and data transactions readily manageable.
Some of the technologies and cloud services involved in the web-based ordering portal include Azure App Service to host the application in a scalable, secure, and managed environment, providing auto-scalability and easy integration with CI/CD pipelines. There is the core web application framework that is responsible for the front-end and back-end logic of the ordering portal, handling user interactions, order submissions, and business rules. Another important component is integration, provided by payment gateway integrations such as APIs from Paystack and Wema Alert Pay, simplifying secure online payments. As a final touch, we ensured a seamless integration with Pinnacle’s existing workflow including invoice processing and order fulfillment systems, ensuring a smooth transition from payment to product delivery.
Well protected by several Microsoft security solutions like Azure Security Center and Azure Backup & Recovery Services, the web-based ordering portal was ready to commence decongesting Pinnacle’s physical offices. In no time since launch, the portal significantly improved processes at Pinnacle Oil & Gas Ltd.
Welcoming Transformation
The ideal solution we proposed to Pinnacle’s stakeholders was a custom web-based ordering portal. This solution enables customers to place orders for their products directly from the website, eliminating the pressure of in-person purchases. To make this system viable, several components had to come together. We determined Microsoft Azure as the most competent host for the solution as it is highly reliable and makes customer management and data transactions readily manageable.
Some of the technologies and cloud services involved in the web-based ordering portal include Azure App Service to host the application in a scalable, secure, and managed environment, providing auto-scalability and easy integration with CI/CD pipelines. There is the core web application framework that is responsible for the front-end and back-end logic of the ordering portal, handling user interactions, order submissions, and business rules. Another important component is integration, provided by payment gateway integrations such as APIs from Paystack and Wema Alert Pay, simplifying secure online payments. As a final touch, we ensured a seamless integration with Pinnacle’s existing workflow including invoice processing and order fulfillment systems, ensuring a smooth transition from payment to product delivery.
Well protected by several Microsoft security solutions like Azure Security Center and Azure Backup & Recovery Services, the web-based ordering portal was ready to commence decongesting Pinnacle’s physical offices. In no time since launch, the portal significantly improved processes at Pinnacle Oil & Gas Ltd.
A New Dawn
The web ordering portal was a much-needed breath of fresh air. The staff and customers experienced a tremendous boost in effectiveness simply by shifting most orders to the portal. With that migration, manual orders were reduced by over 60%, enabling a quicker turnaround from order to delivery. Online orders experienced a significant surge because of increased convenience; Pinnacle’s ROI came quickly as engagement boosted by 30% within the first few months after deployment. Moreso, the staff workload managing repetitive processes decreased. Automated invoicing and order tracking empowered the staff to undertake more activities with a higher contribution to the organization. All these results with the inbuilt secure and scalable infrastructure have only positioned Pinnacle for accelerated digital growth.
Before the adoption of the online ordering portal, Pinnacle operated a dominantly manual purchase process that relied on customers physically visiting their outlets. This method suffered challenges such as operational delays, limited accessibility, and inefficient order tracking. Additionally, with their payment and invoice systems functioning in silos, post-payment processes were time-consuming and error prone.
Sometimes, transformation is not in loud major steps; it lies in tweaking processes subtly but results in massive output. Through the web-based ordering system, Pinnacle’s customers can now enjoy seamless online purchases through integrated payment gateways while the wheels of backend workflows such as invoicing and order fulfillment run smoothly via automation.
Customer Testimonial
The new ordering portal has completely transformed how we serve our customers. It’s faster, more reliable, and has taken a huge load off our internal team. The integration with our existing systems was seamless, and we’re already seeing the impact in efficiency and customer satisfaction.”
IT Manager, Pinnacle Oil and Gas
Customer Testimonial
The new ordering portal has completely transformed how we serve our customers. It’s faster, more reliable, and has taken a huge load off our internal team. The integration with our existing systems was seamless, and we’re already seeing the impact in efficiency and customer satisfaction.”
IT Manager, Pinnacle Oil and Gas
Customer Testimonial
The new ordering portal has completely transformed how we serve our customers. It’s faster, more reliable, and has taken a huge load off our internal team. The integration with our existing systems was seamless, and we’re already seeing the impact in efficiency and customer satisfaction.”
IT Manager,
Pinnacle Oil and Gas
Pinnacle Oil and Gas
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Key Metrics
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