Background
YPF is an Argentine energy company dedicated to the exploration, exploitation, distillation, distribution and production of gas, oil and hydrocarbon derivatives and sale of fuels, lubricants, fertilizers, plastics and other industry-related products.
It is one of the largest companies in Argentina and one of the most important oil companies in the region, employing directly or indirectly more than 100,000 people from all over the country. They have +1600 gas stations (GS) throughout the country (owned and franchised). 70% of YPF GS have YPF Full convenience stores (selling coffee, groceries, etc.) and YPF Boxes (service for the lubrication and diagnosis of the most important parts of the car, mechanical parts, fluids and filters, safety elements, lubricants).
The challenge
YPF offers a variety of products and services to its customers in their GS. Currently, the GS network serves approximately 1.5 million customers refueling per day. To provide better service and increase loyalty, customer data is currently collected through the YPF ServiClub loyalty program. Such data is associated with the customer national identity card (NID) through 2 integrated channels: a mobile APP and the web-site or market place.
The YPF loyalty program awards points for every purchase or refueling that is made in their GS across the country. To be part of this program, individuals must register on an YPF website (https://ServiClub.com.ar/content/4-conoce-ServiClub) by identifying themselves with their personal data. Once subscribed, members obtain points for every purchase by presenting their NID (formerly there was a physical card of YPF points). YPF will add these points to the customer’s account, who can then redeem the points for various available rewards.
Customer data is also collected through the APP available for Android and IOS (https://app.ypf.com/). In addition to accumulating points, it is possible to make payments (virtual wallet, send money or associate credit cards), obtain discounts and benefits, and book maintenance services (through Boxes).
All systems are interconnected. A description of the different SW systems and how they are related is shared in an attachment.
So far most of the core benefits of the rewards program are only accessible through the APP channel, in the marketplace. Notifications with general promotions are issued through the APP, but they are not segmented or personalized; And promotions results are processed globally with a post-mortem analysis.
Penetration: Out of 10 customers, only 4 are registered as members on the YPF ServiClub platform. And 14% of total customers use the APP in YPF stores and 17% for refueling.
In this context, there are several difficulties to increase APP penetration and enable personalized and real-time offers, among the most important being:
- The age of some clients.
- The usual cash payment.
- Connectivity problems in some areas of the country, there is no 4G or wifi in many GS.
In addition, there are limitations in the collection of transactional data due to:
- Information is currently weak in the systems and due to the system's complexity and the way data is obtained, it may not be of high quality.
- No real-time information from any GS.
- Geolocation is not integrated in the system.
Finally, the current marketing approach promotes products according to past sales, not new products or services. The lack of customer information about their preferences is one of the reasons (example: possibility of offering a real-time isotonic water to a sportsman and not a general hot coffee promotion).
What YPF is looking for
We are looking for a solution that helps us locate and identify a customer at a GS, access to his / her consumer profile (and/or real-time consumption data), and launch a personalized promotion to generate new sales, e.g. buying in the YPF Store (As of today, only 30% of the E.S. customers also buy in the YPF Store).
Customers stay on average 7 minutes next to the GS, the period that would allow us to send the personalized promotion.
The ultimate goal is to increase the penetration of the loyalty program, increase loyalty and sales, activating cross-selling, in a personalized way and in real time (when entering the GS).
We are looking for a system with some of these functionalities:
- Locate and identify customers, both loyalty program members/non-members.
- Gather quality customer consumption data for customer segmentation and product offers to promote cross-selling.
- Ability of AI/Data mining to infer new customized offers. Generative AI could be part of the new system capabilities.
- Enable online access to quality data with robust systems.
- Be able to obtain customer consumption data outside the GS (e.g., coffee consumption in other nearby establishments).
In addition to software, the proposed system may incorporate any type of hardware that is required for data capture or other needs.
Evaluation criteria
Submissions will be assessed according to the following criteria:
- Fulfillment of solution requirements
- Better data analysis through IA / Data mining
- Ease of implementation.
- Ability to incorporate all types of clients (older, non-members...)
- Ability to work online and offline (e.g. anticipate offers in the GS where there is no connectivity, replicate transactional data as soon as internet network is available ...),
- Lower estimated solution costs.
The selected finalists will have a meeting with the client to present and defend their proposal.
Challenge structure and calendar
This is a single round challenge with the following calendar:
- 6 weeks for submissions (deadline by 11th of November 2024)
- 4 weeks for the evaluation
Intellectual Property
Participants will retain their intellectual property rights in their proposals.
