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Article: The winning formula. (The Last Word).
- Article from:
- National Petroleum News
- Article date:
- January 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 M2Media360. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The year was 1992, but I remember as if it were yesterday. While working on the retail turnaround strategy for a major oil company, I was facilitating a feedback session of frontline staff, when the seasoned marketing veteran's crusty voice broke the uneasy tension that filled the meeting room. "What do you want, volume or margin?" The room went silent His rhetorical question had captured the moment, crystallizing the day-to-day pressure that the front line was under trying to make volume/margin tradeoffs in an industry that was in tough financial shape, plagued by over-capacity, low site throughputs and high overheads. We both knew that it was not a simple choice. His ...