Posted: November 21st, 2014

WaWa Case review

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.

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