Retailing Beyond Fuel: The Teaching Case Study of PTTOR’s Aviation Fuel Market During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

On April 7, 2021, in the aftermath of the very first of an annual shareholder meeting of PTT Oil and Retail Business Public Company Limited (“PTTOR”), Mr. Pattra (hypothetical name), Risk and Planning Division, was asked by the Vice President, Mr. Nopporn P., to prepare an expansion plan, with which to fulfill the commitments that the President team had made to the shareholders at the OR annual shareholder meeting. Since the PTTOR’s IPO on 11 February 2021, this was the first time of the annual shareholder meeting and it had been a contentious one, with the major shareholders having expressed concern with the challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic and the Government Policy Responses and Measures toward to COVID-19 on the Company’s performance during the year 2020 and the first quarter of the year 2021. They voiced for immediate and responsive actions by the management team to improve the Company’s performance and to ensure that the Company would be resilient and be able to get through the challenges faced during the COVID-19 crisis.

In response to the shareholder meeting, the President had indicated that he was going to call for the internal meeting with all the Vice Presidents and discuss about the strategies to cope with the PTTOR’s performance that had been seriously affected by the COVID-19. At the internal meeting, the President and the Vice Presidents had investigated that the major adversity resulted from the intense competition in the oil business, the global economic recession, and the sharp decline in oil demand especially on the aviation oil that were affected by the closure of airports, disoperation of airlines business, and the government responses measures related to travel restrictions.

By the end of the meeting, the Vice President of Aviation Oil Market has assigned Mr. Pattra to be responsible for conducting the strategic plan including management of concentration risk in order to stabilize the company’s financial performance during the COVID-19 pandemic and projected challenges from penetration plan to European markets. The Risk and Planning Division finds himself genuinely content that he has been entrusted with this significant task by the Vice President. Though he realizes that there is much to be done, and in a relatively short time frame. He is going to prepare this specific expansion plan and to make a presentation to the Vice President at the next scheduled meeting by the end of next week. Therefore, Mr. Pattra determines to get started right away.