Meet the team: Matteo Locane

At Kalibrate, we believe our success is driven as much by our people as our technology. Here, we meet Matteo Locane from our Product team.

Matteo is Product Manager for Kalibrate Pricing and works with fuel retailers to help them evolve their fuel pricing requirements and the innovative solutions that we offer them. He enjoys working with some of the leading fuel brands in the world and the various teams within Kalibrate to further build relationships with our clients.

What is your role at Kalibrate?

I am the Product Manager for Kalibrate Pricing. The essence of my role is twofold: on one hand, ensuring that Kalibrate Pricing fulfils the current needs of our client base; on the other hand, helping understand how the product needs to evolve to meet (and anticipate where possible!) medium and long-term industry trends, and which features should be prioritized, so that we can help our customers hit and exceed their performance objectives.

What does a typical day look like for you?

It is hard to define what a typical day looks like, as variety is very much the name of the game in Product! However, the average week will typically see me diving deep into documentation, be it of internal processes or existing functionality. I also discuss the customer needs and wants with our Customer Success Managers and, where appropriate, directly with the customer; liaising with the Product Owner to finalize requirements.

We then agree expected functionality and review timelines as a team; and last but not least, I enjoy sharing relevant industry knowledge with the rest of the Product organization as well as our exceptional Marketing team.

What do you love about your role at Kalibrate?

When you have a customer base as diverse as ours, you learn something new every day, from industry-wide trends to how retailers react to local regulatory challenges. Additionally, seeing people use the feature you have been discussing for months, and hearing them say “This is exactly what we needed” is incredibly rewarding!

The people are also a huge plus – the atmosphere is very collaborative, and everyone I have met so far has been both incredibly knowledgeable in their field and firmly committed to delivering a world-class solution for our customers.

Why did you choose to join Kalibrate?

I was aware of Kalibrate before I joined because I happen to be a former user of Kalibrate Pricing – back when I lived in Ireland, I oversaw the daily pricing of c.250 company- and dealer-owned petrol stations located in Northern Europe.

This was a very volatile market, with multiple price changes per day, so we used Kalibrate quite intensively and were always impressed with both its capabilities and the wealth of industry knowledge demonstrated by its people. So, when the opportunity to join the team presented itself, I was very glad to accept.

What do you think are the greatest challenges and opportunities facing retailers? 

Volatility is always a challenge, and even more so in recent times. Fuel retailers who want to survive and thrive in a highly volatile environment need to price quickly, reliably, and efficiently – and they need to be able to do so in a consistent, repeatable manner.

Another challenge (but also an important opportunity) for fuel retailers is the EV uptake. Once EV vehicles and charging infrastructure hit critical mass, the nature itself of petrol stations will change, and retailers need to be thinking about their approach. Will they sell the atom as opposed to the molecule and rely on heavy automation to protect their margins, or will they focus on their convenience and QSR offerings?

But the biggest opportunity, I think, lies in data-driven insights. Ultimately, pricing teams want to take the guesswork out of pricing, whether it is about identifying key competitors or fine-tuning strategies. Access to up-to-date and reliable data sources can unlock invaluable insights for fuel retailers if they have the right tools to cut through the metaphorical fog and separate.

Where do you see the fuel, retail, or convenience markets heading?

In a technology-heavy, deeply interconnected world, data-driven decision-making becomes more and more important. In mature markets, margins have been compressing for a while now (be it due to supply constraints, additional regulatory burdens, or low-cost competitors entering the market), and the additional volatility observed over the past few months has not improved the situation.

Fuel retailers should actively seek every possible opportunity to leverage the power of data to remove the guesswork out of pricing, better understand their performance (both at an absolute and relative level) and unearth upcoming trends.

To find out more about Kalibrate Pricing, you can read the full overview about our products and solutions here.