In November, IFSF held its first in-person Annual Conference since 2019. The event, held over two days in Prague, was an opportunity for IFSF’s members, key stakeholders and partners to meet and discuss the need for seamless integration in the forecourt of the future.

The Conference, chaired by Carl Jones and moderated by Morten Raaby, invited speakers from many branches of the sector to discuss their views on the future of the industry and the importance of interoperability and standardisation in our field.

Ian Brown (IFSF) and Tim Linsell (Accenture) opened the conference and set the scene with compelling presentations about the future of the forecourt and how it is evolving to become a mobility hub. They talked about the implications of this shift including the increasing need to collaborate with multiple partners and stressed the importance of integration using modular services and APIs.

The conference welcomed the participation of actors from outside the traditional forecourt, discussing the integration challenges presented by alternative fuels, such as EV Charging (Michel Bayings, OCA) and Hydrogen dispensers (Michel Hinfelaar, Haia Consultancy).  It was clear, throughout these presentations, that integration and collaboration was an extremely timely issue.

The event also welcomed several IFSF members (Frodi Hammer, A2I and Matthijs Machielse, Big Brother) to take to the stage and share their views on the importance of serving the customer and highlighting that data is the new ‘gold’ (or oil!) that can help deliver seamless journeys for the end consumer. Gary Szendzielarz (Astro Baltics) talked about the opportunities that are provided by using Cloud platforms and high-speed networks to integrate best in breed solutions.  It was clear that data standardisation will be key and the work that IFSF and Conexxus is doing to create a standard API Data Dictionary will be critically important.

Paolo Magnoni (Shell) and Gonzalo Fernandez Gomez (OrionTech) talked about the work that IFSF is doing to create a Closed Loop Payment API giving a concrete example of how IFSF is using an agile approach to create a new payment standard from the bottom up.

Key opinion leaders in the forecourt industry such as Nick Allen (P97) and Gray Taylor (Conexxus) also took us through a vision of the future, which will ultimately involve ultra-convenience, connected cars, IOT and Artificial Intelligence, as tech trends constantly evolve and impact our industry.

The conference was also an excellent opportunity for IFSF’s Technical Associates to meet and debate on the role of IFSF and the importance of the involvement of each of its members, as well as provide feedback regarding the priorities for IFSF in 2023. Networking sessions – always a highlight of the event – were welcomed by delegates as they gathered again at an IFSF event for the first time since the COVID pandemic.  The full programme including all the speaker presentations from the conference are available to IFSF members here.

IFSF are currently planning the details for its 30^th Anniversary Conference, which is set to take place in November 2023.  Keep your eyes peeled for more details coming soon….