WEX CEO: Don’t Underestimate The Pace Of Change

In our latest installment, we spoke to Mike Dubyak, chairman, president and CEO of WEX about his experiences innovating in some of payments’ most complex verticals. How does the leader of a company involved in industries such as fleet cards, healthcare, payroll and more view payments’ fast-paced changes? Find out below.

PYMNTS.com: How would you define your company’s approach to innovation? 

Dubyak: We subscribe to the principle that if you can align your culture with innovation, it will provide the optimal results. There are two key dimensions that drive our culture of innovation:

• First, we are constantly attuned to our markets and customers, and we are consistently providing enhanced, incremental innovative solutions to meet their existing needs.

 

• Second, we apply what we learn from our customers and combine that knowledge with external forces to introduce unarticulated, innovative solutions into the market.

 

What is the most innovative thing that you have introduced into the market – and what value did it deliver to the stakeholder group that was its target?

“Octane,” our award-winning fuel site locator app, is the first of its kind to provide up-to-date transaction-based fuel prices and text-to-speech capabilities. “Octane” equips drivers with the following abilities:

• Locate the nearest and lowest cost fuel sites (including those with alternative fuels) with real-time fuel prices

 

• Keep hands on the wheel while a voice safely guides the driver to the desired fuel location

 

• Save search criteria, which makes it easy to quickly perform frequent searches

 

• Find the nearest available fuel site during a weather and power emergency (e.g., “Octane” helped WEX’s first responders during Hurricane Sandy to determine which fuel locations were operational)

 

Where do you look for innovative ideas and why?

We are constantly receiving formal and informal feedback from our associates about their customer observations, and customers’ pain points and needs to run their businesses more effectively. For example, we have:

• Three Lead User Groups that meet in Portland every year. In these meetings, we share what we see happening in the markets and solicit customers’ feedback by having them work in breakout groups to help prioritize their needs.

 

• A technology forum where we bring in various industry leaders to discuss what they are doing to change the game in the payments space or related areas that potentially have a short- or long-term impact in our markets.

 

• An emerging technology group that is researching future impacts of new technologies in the payments space.

 


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• An innovation initiative at WEX where we synthesize what we learn from all of these meetings and inputs, combine that with technical changes and market forces that could impact us, and look for both articulated and unarticulated needs that will drive our R&D and product roadmaps.

 

What do you think that most people underestimate about innovating in payments?

I think people underestimate the pace of change happening in the payments space, and the need to consistently invest in new and innovative ideas to meet the demands of a fast-paced marketplace.

At WEX, we realize that payments can be delivered in various ways around the globe. At a high level, we see physical, virtual and digital cards all having relevancy in various markets and geographies. We also see different types of delivery of the payments solutions, such as smart cards, mobile, chip and pin, magnetic stripe, and digital and virtual methods. There is no guarantee that a particular form of delivery will be adopted worldwide due to barriers in many markets that may not encourage it.

What person or company do you think “gets” innovation and why?

I believe Nike gets innovation to the point where they are willing to disintermediate – cut out the middleman – for profitable product lines. They believe they must lead, even if it means cannibalization, or someone else will take the leadership position. It is a tough discipline and not easy to fully indoctrinate and support, especially when the power base may reside with very successful product lines that are paving the way in the current markets. This is truly where culture must be strong and resilient enough to overcome the inertia against radical change.

I recently read that Nike CEO Mark Parker said, “One of my fears is being this big, slow, constipated, bureaucratic company that’s happy with its success.” I completely echo this sentiment for WEX.

What advice would you give a young innovator in this space and why would you tell him or her to heed it?

You must be a sponge in knowing the articulated needs and the external forces impacting future product innovations. Do the research to try to anticipate the entry of innovative products and services. And while doing this, fail fast and fail cheap. In other words, build prototypes and test them in a market without spending too much time and money on building a completed life cycle product. You may have to support it with one-off support services to see if the market will buy it or not.

Michael E. Dubyak
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, WEX

Mr. Dubyak has served as our Executive Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer since May, 2008. From August 1998 to May 2008 he served as our President and Chief Executive Officer. From November 1997 to August 1998, Mr. Dubyak served as our Executive Vice President of U.S. Sales and Marketing. From January 1994 to November 1997, Mr. Dubyak served us in various senior positions in marketing, marketing services, sales, business development and customer service. From January 1986 to January 1994, he served as our Vice President of Marketing. Mr. Dubyak has more than 30 years of experience in the payment processing, information management services and vehicle fleet and fuel industries.