Engen, the oil company of choice in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands, is driving a major change in the fuel market landscape by introducing cutting-edge convenience shopping in its fast-growing service station network in the region.

After revamping its South African retail network with a new interior and livery in 2009, the company began rolling out the new-look Quickshop offering in neighbouring countries and further north, along with signature partner brands Corner Bakery and Wimpy.
Starting with Namibia and Botswana, Project Reinvigorate has since modernised a number of existing Engen service stations in various Sub Saharan African countries. In parallel, Engen has steadily overhauled the networks it acquired from its competitors in recent years.

Quickshop’s African journey
Mike Cook, Retail Manager for Engen International Business, says the spread of the new Quickshops across Engen’s operations, in 15 territories, started with a bang in the Namibian market, which sports 30 new-look Quickshop sites today, as does Botswana.

Zambia, where the standardisation roll out continued, currently has three revamped sites. Jerome Gambo, convenience specialist at Engen IBD, says Engen recently introduced the successful Corner Bakeries partner franchise in Zambia, which is set to push the drive to further ratchet up operating and branding standards.

Malawi lays claim to one new Quickshop. Meanwhile, in Mozambique the company has built three new-look sites to add to its existing network, and is adding Corner Bakeries to three more sites as a precursor to complete revitalisation.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Engen acquired Shell’s operations in 2008, Engen has thus far added brand-new Quickshops to 15 sites.

In Zimbabwe, its existing network has swelled by 47 from a 2010 acquisition of Chevron’s business in that country. Gambo says Engen is currently looking at installing Quickshops into six of those sites, with more on the cards down the line.

Non-fuelDrikus Kotze, General Manager, Engen IBD, says in keeping with the group’s EPIC 2016 vision to be the oil company of choice in Sub Saharan Africa and Indian Ocean Islands, it has earmarked non-fuel revenue as an important source of growth.
“With constantly diminishing fuel margins, especially in deregulated markets, convenience is an important growth boost. It will bring our organic growth on a par with rapid expansion by acquisitions over the past few years.”
 

Business plan
Engen’s retail business plan for 2013 envisages 20 more state-of-the-art Quickshop sites by the end of the year, as well as 30 Corner Bakeries.