has been in the trucking and construction businesses for more than 30 years. Abrams was running a regional leasing company before founding Diesel Direct in 1998, after realizing the logistical problem of keeping trucks fueled was a business opportunity, not just a headache. Today Diesel Direct fuels and services trucks nationwide for clients as big as one of the big-2 soft-drink distributors and as small as a local trucking company.

Its workers--who ghost in and out of truck-fleet parking yards so early even the crack-of-dawn loaders and drivers sometimes don't see them feeding the trucks--use handheld scanners to record how much fuel and service they give each truck, then upload that data to Diesel Direct, which can then send out invoices for the work that same day.

"This is a very cash-flow-intensive business," according to Tim Callow, a consultant acting as CIO for the $300 million company. "We're buying thousands of gallons of diesel every day at every single site, so we can't afford to wait for payment or reimbursement.

A lot of the invoices have to go out every day by certain times, so third-party accounting companies can do their thing for the fleet owners." The setup sounds like a classic for any overhyped business-process-automation system, but Daniel Abrams and other Diesel Direct managers weren't interested in managing their business using sophisticated business systems that require more motivation, money and technical staff than Abrams was willing to use or pay for.