David Burton.
The DIB Group is the owner of NSW-based Metro Petroleum, a major petroleum retailer regularly servicing more than 40,000 private and commercial clients, which makes it one of Australia’s largest independent service station franchise operators. It also owns the Hill & Co fuel distribution business.
Its genesis was in a single Caltex franchise at Punchbowl in Sydney some 35 years ago, run by John Dib, who is now Managing Director of the DIB Group. His Executive Assistant/Operations Manager, Lila Younis, began work in the industry with the DIB Group 27 years ago and has not looked back since joining.
Grass-roots experience led to management role
Ms Younis began as a console operator, learning the trade. Asked if she could remember the price of petrol back then, she volunteered a figure of 40¢ per litre.
“While we had computers back then, it was manual with balancing the shifts, working out your profit for the day, and so on,” she told Convenience World.
Fuel choices were much simpler when she began in the industry and diesel was mostly used in trucks, with the high-octane ‘branded fuels’ yet to be launched.
Her initial role as a console operator was for the company’s Mobil franchise at Kirrawee, which is now a 7-Eleven, and she continued in this role when moving to Mobil Blakehurst, and then Caltex Kogarah, while beginning to learn management aspects of running a service station. Her first management role with the DIB Group was at Caltex Taren Point, a role she performed for several years. “I was the site manager/console operator, and I looked after that site 200 per cent,” she said. “From Caltex Taren Point, I went into a franchise myself with one of my colleagues at DIB Group – Caltex Wetherill Park – back in 1994. “It was a brand new site, it was massive … I was a franchisee there and also managing Mobil Lakemba, Mobil Peakhurst and Caltex Taren Point, so I had four sites I was managing every single day.” Eventually these outlets were passed on and sold when John Dib began with Mobil RAF (retail area franchise), with up to nine Mobil sites under Ms Younis’ supervision.
Move to DIB Group head office
During this period Ms Younis began doing some head-office work for John Dib.
“Metro was growing – not only our franchises, Caltex and Mobil – and the purchasing of the distributorship Hill & Co added volumes,” she said.
“We then decided to sell our Mobil franchise. We had one year’s lease left. We sold out of that business and we grew into Metro Petroleum and distributorship.”
As a senior executive in the P&C sector, Ms Younis believes the petroleum industry is a great business to be in.
“Working in the industry has been very successful for all our new dealers coming into the industry,” she said. “They come in looking for one site and then, within the year, they’re asking for the second, third or as many sites as available. It’s very profitable for them at the moment.”
In her role as Operations and Marketing Manager, Ms Younis is vitally involved in how the sites look and the potential to bring new sites into the Metro fold. Commenting on the latest upgrades to Metro service stations, she said there were several carried out in 2014 with some involving just a facelift.
“Metro Revesby is an interesting case,” she said. “We took over that site in late November and gave it a full facelift, and the volume’s just gone through the roof. If a service station looks run-down, it turns customers away.
“Your pumps have to be new and clean, your showroom has to be clean, tidy and full of stock all the time, the site has to be painted, your staff need to be in uniform and, most of all, you need to have customer service. And when you don’t have any of these, you’re struggling.
“The site at Revesby was a company-operated site at that time, and we’re getting the standards up to 100 per cent there. The site was franchised in February 2015.”
Metro Petroleum is a fast-growing independent chain with its sights firmly set on interstate expansion.
