WaWa Case review

This homework is a part a group assignment 1. Issues before the company now included ? the relation between SCM & competitiveness; ? the nature of the typical store, and store manager; and ? possible expansion beyond Wawa’s current area of operations. What recommendations would you make to Wawa? 2. Another question concerned Wawa’s stores. Historically, these places had featured a friendly, ambience where “everybody knows your name” but the company was moving towards larger, more standardized units with fewer offerings, with the goal of minimizing customer throughput time. What would this shift mean for the role of the store manager, and for the overall customer experience? 3. Finally, to what extent was Wawa “landlocked” in its concentrated, middle-Atlantic market? Could-and should-the company attempt to export its distinctive value proposition, culture, and methods to other geographic areas? NOTE: the answers have to address the questions from all its queries, and each answer should be under its question. NOTE: The article has many WELL KNOWN questions and some of these questions are the above. There are answers for these questions on the internet, and my Dr is aware of them, he requested an original answers. However, you may do whatever you find it helpful BUT the answers have to be original, and the only source I can use is the article is provided ( no any other sources please) S w W11287 WAWA: SUPPLY CHANGE MANAGEMENT Robert W. Keidel wrote this case solely to provide material for class discussion. The author does not intend to illustrate eith er effective or ineffective handling of a manage rial situation. The author may have disgui sed certain names and other identifying information to protect confidentiality. Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation prohibits any form of reproduction, stor age or transmission without its written permission. Reproduction of this material is not covered under authorization by any reproduction rights organization. To order copies or request permission to reproduce material s, contact Ivey Publishing, Richard Ivey School of Bu siness Foundation, The Universi ty of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 3K7; phone (519) 661-3208; fax (519) 661-3882; e-mail cases@ivey.uwo.ca. Copyright © 2011, Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation Version: (A) 2011-05-19 The only thing missing from his wide window vista was a bird in flight...a goose...a Canada goose...a wawa . The blue July sky invited expansiveness. So Howard Stoeckel, CEO of Wawa, a highly successful, Pennsylvania-based, 564-st ore convenience chain, obliged. Now entering the second half of calendar 2007, his firm was well on its way to reconfiguring a co mplex but disjointed supply chain into a coherent, strategic asset. But Wawa’s opera tional challenges remained daunting. And the competitive landscape was even more severe. In Stoeckel’s words: Everything we think of is, how do you leve rage volume? And how do you create a sustainable, long-term competitive advantage? I’m a great believer that you have to blaze your own path, you just can’t try to copy what others do because we compete with gasoline retailers; we compete with Burger King, McDonald’s, and Wendy’s; we compete with Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks; we comp ete with CVS and Walg reen’s; we compete with Subway and Quizno’s. You’ve got all t hose competitors out there, you’d go crazy if you try to copy what they do, so you have to blaze your own path, you have to know who you are, what you do well, stay true to yourself, and create an infrastructure that supports it. And that’s what gives us a sustainable competitive advantage. Stoeckel was hardly a Pollyanna about what lay ahead: “You can’t stay put.... We need to transport this business elsewhere to grow; it has to be a brand supported by processes.... We’re worried about shareholder value twenty years from now, forty y ears from now...and, if we don’t make the right decisions, that value won’t be there.” Yet in almost the same breath, Stoeckel acknowledged, “this market is the golden goose, the cash cow, for the next decade or two — and will pave the way until another market can take some of the pressure off in terms of growth.” But back to the present. Wawa’s increasingly inte grated 2007 supply chain was a far cry from an almost ad hoc arrangement only eight years earlier. Tech nical innovation and imagina tive relationships with suppliers and distributors had produced si gnificant savings and service levels. For the exclusive use of F. AL-QATTAN This document is authorized for use only by FUAD AL-QATTAN in [2014 Fall] Case Studies in OM taught by Jen-Yi (Jay) Chen Cleveland State University from September 2014 to March 2015. Page 2 9B11M042 But how many further gains in efficiency and flexibility could the company expect to realize by applying science to supply? And if and wh en geographical expansion was to ta ke place, to what extent would Wawa’s current management system be portable? THE CONVENIENCE STORE INDUSTRY A convenience store (“c” store) typi cally is a small retail outlet that se lls a limited variety of products but offers extended shopping hours and fast service. Ac cording to the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), “convenience stores evolved from a vari ety of sources early in the twentieth century. They drew upon characteristics of many types of retail establishments in existence at the time: the ‘mom- and-pop’ neighborhood grocery store, the ‘ice-house’ (fro m pre-refrigerator days), the dairy store, the supermarket and the delicatessen.” 1 The first convenience store in the Unit ed States appeared in Dallas, Texas, in 1927. It was opened by the Southland Ice Company, which later became 7-Eleven (so-named because the fledgling chain featured store hours from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a we ek). The industry burgeoned after World War II, as automobile-driven suburbanization put a premium on convenience and speed. Many convenience stores started selling gasoline after self-service b ecame popular. 2 As of mid-2007, there were 145,119 convenience/gas stores in the United States, with total sales of $569 billion. Convenience stores accounted for more than 80 per cent of all U.S. gasoline sales. Apart from gas, the most popular products were, in order: 1. Cigarettes 2. Packaged non-alcoholic beverages 3. Beer 4. Foodservice 5. Other tobacco 6. Candy 7. Salty snacks 8. General merchandise 9. Fluid milk products 10. Packaged sweet snacks 3 NACS reported that “the industry c ontinues to be dominated by small, ‘independent’ operators — stores that are owned and operated as a one-s tore business or franchise. The nu mber of one-store owners stood at 89,957 stores,” 4 or 62 per cent of the U.S. total. Accordi ng to NACS, the core challenges confronting the convenience-store industry were competition from other channels, unstable gasoline margins and technological change. 1 NACS Online, www.nacsonline.com, accessed December 12, 2007. 2 Ibid. 3 NACS Online, www.nacsonline.com, updated S eptember 2007, accessed November 7, 2007. 4 Ibid. For the exclusive use of F. AL-QATTAN This document is authorized for use only by FUAD AL-QATTAN in [2014 Fall] Case Studies in OM taught by Jen-Yi (Jay) Chen Cleveland State University from September 2014 to March 2015. PLACE THIS ORDER OR A SIMILAR ORDER WITH US TODAY AND GET AN AMAZING DISCOUNT :)