“It’s better to drive change than to be driven by change” says Q1 Energy’s CEO

On the latest episode of The Future of Convenience podcast, host Dan Munford and co-host Christian Warning, managing partner of The Retail Marketeers, spoke with two industry leaders navigating that question from opposite sides of the counter. Frederick Beckmann, CEO of Q1 Energy, and Aart van Rooijen, CEO of BigBrother International, joined the conversation to unpack how retailers are rethinking margin, technology and customer behavior at the pump.

Warning framed the issue around a market like Germany, where nearly all fuel customers step inside to pay for fuel even though roughly half never buy anything else. “[With] that kind of conversion rate here, what will it take to win those customers?” Warning asked his guests on what retailers could do differently.

Beckmann described the philosophy guiding Q1 Energy’s approach to a fast-changing German market, where consolidation has been slower than in much of Europe but is now accelerating. “It’s better to drive change than to be driven by change,” he said, arguing that operators who set the pace for their own transformation are the ones who end up owning their results, rather than reacting to competitors or regulation after the fact.

Beckmann suggested that the industry too often defaults to habit rather than evidence, questioning whether the walk into the store is what actually drives a chocolate bar or bottled water sale, or whether a smarter prompt delivered at the pump could do the job just as well.

Van Rooijen said technology has already changed what was once treated purely as a loss prevention question. “Technology takes away the question of fuel pre-payment or post-payment from a loss and prevention decision to a strategic decision,” he said, adding that the choice increasingly belongs at the leadership table rather than with security managers alone.

Beckmann also pointed to a broader shift underway across forecourts, describing the goal as building “multi-service hubs, destinations that attract customers to stay longer, and to spend more” rather than simple fuel stops.

The conversation offers a preview of themes set to feature at forecourttech, the industry’s European technology event, taking place October 14 to 15 in Alicante, Spain.

The full podcast episode is available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all major platforms. New episodes are released every other Tuesday, featuring conversations with convenience retail leaders from around the world.