...Summary 7-Eleven is a famous brand and provide more than 40 thousands convenience stores for the customers in the worldwide and the most important factor is successful performance in Supply Chain Management (SCM). However, 7-Eleven still has been facing a lot of problems which should be sorting them out in order to get more business opportunities. This report focuses on the supply chain management of 7-Eleven and suggests the improvement for potential problem of its whole supply chain system. At first, will introduce the company’s background by collecting data about its current situation and identifies the issues which are supported by SWOT analysis. And through the GAP analyses of the business the key existent issues faced by 7-Eleven. According to those above, the report will finalize the recommendations and implementation methods in order to improve the business and set a benchmark for future development. In the end, although 7-Eleven’s trend is led more convenience stores to satisfy the need of customers, but it still needs to improve its supply chain and operation mode to Commercial global optimization to continue keeping its leading position in the retail market. 7-Eleven Background 7-Eleven is the largest convenience store chain in the world, which has approximately 47,500 stores in 16 countries. The first Australian store was opened in 1977 owned by the Withers/Barlow family which has the license to operate and franchise 7-Eleven stores in Australia from the U.S. 7-Eleven...
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...effective supply chain management which brings customer satisfaction and profitability. Many retailers especially supermarkets and grocery stores use different strategies in order to achieve an effective supply chain management. Faced with predictable variability, a company’s goal is to respond in a manner that balances supply with demand to maximize profitability (Chopra & Meindl, 2013: 247). Inventory management is the activity of planning and controlling accumulation of inventory which occurs because of local mismatches between supplier and demand (Slack, et al. 2012). Inventory management is one of the building blocks of total supply management and a good indicator of the effectiveness of supply chain management (Basu&Wright, 2008) Stock rotation is an innovative inventory management practice, commonly used in retail, especially in food stores such supermarkets and groceries, of moving products with an earlier sell-by date to the front of a shelf and of moving products with a later sell-by date to the back. (Gustafsson et al. 2006). In this assignment, it is going to be analysed how 7-Eleven achieves the performance objectives; cost, dependability, flexibility, speed and quality via innovative inventory management and stock rotation and further compare this using the importance-performance matrix. The author studied industry journals, including a case study of 7-Eleven’s, and emphasised the impact of stock rotation and inventory management on supply chain management...
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...CASE: SEVEN ELEVEN JAPAN Executive Summary I Executive Summary The goal of this case is to analyze how a firm can be successful by structuring its supply chain to support its supply chain strategy. Once Seven-Eleven Japan decided to provide responsiveness by rapid replenishment, it then structured its facilities, inventory, information, and distribution to support this choice. The case also brings up the question of whether the same approach can work in the United States, especially given the greater distances and lower store density. Table of Contents II I Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................................................. I II List of Abbreviations......................................................................................................... III 1 Seven-Eleven Japan Co........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 History and Profile ........................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Framework of further discussions .................................................................................... 1 2 Discussion ............................................................................................................................ 1 2.1 Supply Chain Responsiveness ..................................................................
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...1. Describe the type of supply chain used by 7-Eleven. For example are they agile, adaptable, aligned? 7-Eleven is the largest operator and franchisor of convenience stores in the world, with more than 46,000 outlets and currently selling 500 million litres of petrol, $500 million of merchandise and serving almost 80 million customers worldwide. With figures like this, you have to wonder how they did it? Aside from the fact that the store operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and hence adhere to the ‘convenience store’ label, 7-Eleven addressed some key aspects that often other organisations overlook. “We must be open to change to remain successful,” said7-Eleven CEO Joe DePinto (and recent “Undercover Boss”) at the conclusion of his Tuesday morning keynote address at the IFA 2011 Annual Convention. Noticing a need to change, 7-Eleven turned their whole outlook around, focusing on the franchisees instead of focusing on the headquarters of the organisation. After all, the franchisees are the ones that work at ground level with customers on a day to day basis, establishing relationships and recognising customer needs. 7-Elevens response to a changing marketplace yielded significant benefits and further more allowed the implementation of technology and supply chain integration to increase functionality. An efficient supply chain maximises planning, organising and helps distribute a flow of the organisations product to end customers. This is done through implementing innovative...
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...SEVEN-ELEVEN JAPAN CO. CASE ANALYSIS What is the future outlook for Seven Eleven Stores in USA? Seven-Eleven is part of an international chain of convenient stores. 7-Eleven, primarily operating as a franchise, is the world's largest operator, franchisor and licensor of convenience stores, with more than 46,000 outlets. The Seven-Eleven business model consists of five key elements: * A differentiated merchandising strategy; * Utilization of 7-Eleven’s retail information system & Managed distribution; * Providing a convenient shopping environment; and * A unique franchise model. Let us have a brief look over 7-Eleven stores in US and Japan: Seven-Eleven Japan: * High density market presence with 50-60 stores supported by distribution centre. * Limited geographical presence * Emphasized regional merchandizing * Processed and fast foods contributed to most of its sales * Products like food and beverages, magazines and consumer items such as soaps and detergents * Services offered like payment of electricity bills, telephone, gas bills, meal delivery services, 7 dream e-commerce, electronic money offering and many * Advanced information technology helped store to analyse store data every day morning and helps in having valuable shelf life * Information system installed in every outlet and linked to HQ, Suppliers and 7-eleven distribution centres. Uses ISDN to collect, process and feedback POS data quickly * Delivery frequency...
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...study of Seven-Eleven Japan Co. 1. Convenience store chain attempts to be responsive and provide customers what they need, when they need it, where they need it. What are some different ways that a convenience store supply chain can be responsive? What are some risks in each case? Ways of responsiveness of convenience store Risks supply chain Fast replenishment: Cost of transport 1-3 times daily store delivery Rely on the stability of Transport Local inventory: Cost of inventory maintenance Sales of items stockpiled in local store Cost of obsolete inventory Order taking*: Cost of numerous orders processing Delivering merchandise according to customers’ Limited lead time orders On-site producing: Cost of raw material inventory Producing merchandise with raw material on-site Fluctuation of sales 2. 7-Eleven's supply chain strategy in Japan can be described as attempting to micro-match supply and demand using rapid replenishment. What are some risks associated with this choice? Rapid replenishment and Micro-match supply & demand strategy highly rely on the efficient ordering system and the fast transport. As a result, the cost of ordering system and fast transport themselves can be a risk. Moreover, according to this case, 7-11 develops an anticipation system, in order to forecast the local sales. However, when customers’ needs fluctuate in short period and original anticipation loses effectiveness, it will face extra cost of transport. 3. What has 7-Eleven done in its...
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...sites of 7-Eleven Japan, its original supply chain must be affected. 7dream.com can enjoy the competitive advantages in Japanese e-commerce by using their own company’s information system. It allows the company to reduce the response time and increase the efficiency of information flow from suppliers to end users in order to meet the their fluctuation demand. Especially during the time of sharing information online, additional cost in maintaining the high responsiveness may increase as 7-Eleven Japan needs to build extra information infrastructure. Or company may need to out-source the data to other companies in order to get faster and more accurate data analyze of customer needs and wants from the big data. This results in adding more parties in its original supply chain. Also, as the e-businesses can use existing delivery network which has high responsiveness that allows it to enjoy low transportation cost. Response time for customers is probably really low as same-day delivery is possible for items stored locally in the 7-Eleven. Customers can reduce the delivery cost by picking up the merchandizes in store. The company may have potential in saving the operating cost. Yet, it is much easier to offer larger product variety in online that if customers order lots of small single items to their home in different time, transportation cost may increase even 7-Eleven Japan has distribution centers to deal with it. The company may need to set up another supply chain system to...
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...Seven-Eleven Japan was first established in 1973. They set up their first store in Koto-ku, Tokyo, in 1974 and the company was first listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in the month of October, in 1979. In 2004, it was owned by the Ito-Yokado group which alongside the Seven-Eleven stores, managed a chain of supermarkets in Japan and owned a majority share in southland-the company managing Seven-Eleven in the United States. The founder of both Ito-Yokado and Seven-Eleven Japan, Masatoshi Ito, started his retail empire after World War II when he joined his mother and brother and began to work in a small clothing store in Tokyo. He was in complete control by 1960, and the single store had grown into a $3 million company. In 1961, after a trip to the United States, Ito came to the conclusion that superstores were “the wave of the future,” and so the empire began. Ito’s chains of superstores in Tokyo were instantly popular and soon became the core of Ito-Yokado’s retail operations. After Ito’s initial request in 1972, about the prospect of opening Seven-Eleven convenience stores in Japan was rejected, further approach’s by the entrepreneur, saw Southland, the US company, agreeing to a licensing agreement one year later. However, this agreement came to a price: in exchange for 0.6 per cent of total sales, Southland was to give Ito exclusive rights throughout Japan. With this placed in action, the first Seven-Eleven convenience store opened in Tokyo in May 1974. Following this...
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...1 i CASE STUDY ~ SEVEN-ELEVEN JAPAN CO. Established in 1973, Seven-Eleven Japan set up its first store in Koto-ku, Tokyo, in May 1974. The company was first listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in October 1979. In 2004 it was owned by the Ito-Yokado group, which also managed a chain of supermarkets in Japan and owned a majority share in Southland, the company managing SevenEleven in the United States. Seven-Eleven Japan realized a phenomenal growth between the years of 1985 and 2003. During that period, the number of stores increased from 2,299 to 10,303; annual sales increased from 386 billion to 2,343 billion yen; and net income increased from 9 billion to 91.5 billion yen. Additionally, the company's return on equity (ROE) averaged around 14 percent between 2000 and 2004. In 2004, Seven-Eleven Japan represented Japan's largest retailer in terms of operating income and number of stores. Customer visits to Seven-Eleven outlets totaled 3.6 billion that year, averaging almost 30 visits to a SevenEleven annually for every person in Japan. COMPANY HISTORY AND PROFILE Both Ito-Yokado and Seven-Eleven Japan were founded by Masatoshi Ito. He started his retail empire after World . War II, when he joined his mother and elder brother and began to work in a small clothing store in Tokyo. By 1960 he was in sole control, and the single store had grown into a $3 million company. After a trip to the United States in 1961, Ito became convinced that superstores...
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...Sunil Chopra TEACHING NOTE: SEVEN-ELEVEN JAPAN CO. The goal of this case is to illustrate how a firm can be successful by structuring its supply chain to support its supply chain strategy. Once Seven-Eleven Japan decided to provide responsiveness by rapid replenishment, it then structured its facilities, inventory, information, and distribution to support this choice. The case also brings up the question of whether the same approach can work in the United States, especially given the greater distances and lower store density. Questions 1. A CONVENIENCE STORE CHAIN ATTEMPTS TO BE RESPONSIVE AND PROVIDE CUSTOMERS WHAT THEY NEED, WHEN THEY NEED IT, WHERE THEY NEED IT. WHAT ARE SOME DIFFERENT WAYS THAT A CONVENIENCE STORE SUPPLY CHAIN CAN BE RESPONSIVE? WHAT ARE SOME RISKS IN EACH CASE? As responsiveness increases, the convenience store chain is exposed to greater uncertainty. A convenience store chain can improve responsiveness to this uncertainty using one of the following strategies, especially for fresh and fast foods: Local capacity: The convenience store chain can provide local cooking capacity at the stores and assemble foods almost on demand. Inventory would be stored as raw material. This is seen at the U.S. fast food restaurant franchise Subway where dinner and lunch sandwiches are assembled on demand. The main risk with this approach is that capacity is decentralized, leading to poorer utilization. Local inventory: Another approach is...
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...Supply Chain Management Case: Seven-Eleven Japan Co. 1 Responsiveness * In general, a convenience store supply chain has three ways of being responsive: 1.1 In-Store Capacity * Integrating cooking equipment inside the stores will match supply and demand for warm dishes. The process of cooking and assembling the food will be moved after the customer order arrives (i.e. pull process) reacting directly to consumers demand. This shift implies a decentralization of the supply chain hence, requiring higher costs and poorer utilization (i.e. efficiency loss). Furthermore, training costs incur since employees at the stores need to run the machines. 1.2 Local Inventory Keeping stock holdings high at the store also is a way of being responsive and offering a high service level. Although this allows for the centralization of cooking equipment, extra space is needed and the efficiency of the supply chain is contingent on the correct forecast of demand thus, creating idle inventory or even wasted inventory if the products are perishable when demand deviates from the inventory level. 1.3 Rapid Replenishment This approach is used by Seven-Eleven. High delivery frequency sets a high responsiveness at the store but increases delivery costs. Furthermore, it keeps the absolute number of inventory items needed to run the store low (i.e. stores are can be smaller than if local inventory was build up), even though the store capacity usage is high. Rapid replenishment also leads to...
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...store chain attempts to be responsive and provide customers what they need, when they need it, where they need it. What are some different ways that a convenience store supply chain can be responsive? What are some risks in each case? Some of the ways that a convenience store chain can response are: * Focusing in the total cost of the supporting a chain, that includes all the elements of cost that go into a purchase like order quantities, deliveries, warehousing, support systems, among others. The risk of this approach is not giving the appropriate amount of profit to the products and services, because focusing in the amount of costs this kind of business will generate. * Controlling the number of deliveries from other companies (vendors) to your store. The risk here is by controlling the number of vendors you are taking the risk of been out of stock and not fulfilling the demand. * Creating a distribution center is one of the best ways to reduce costs, and also control their own supply chain. The risk of this method is that initiating a distribution center is expensive, if your chain has not made the idealize amount of profits this approach is very risky, because this method requires structure, employees, machines, among other expenses. 2. Seven-Eleven’s supply chain strategy in Japan can be described as attempting to micro-match supply and demand using rapid replenishment. What are some risks associated its supply choice? The risks with this supply choice...
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...Supply Chain Management Case study: 7-eleven Japan Co. Name: Chow Lai Ting Student number: 113226 Section 5 Background Seven-Eleven Japan was established in 1973 with its first store opened in Tokyo. It is considered an outstanding and well-known enterprise in Japan. The rapid growth of Seven-Eleven is also remarkable. In 1985 to 2007, its number of store had drastically increased from 2,299 to 12,034. The annual sales increased from 386 billion to 91.5 billion. Additionally, the company’s return on equity averaged around 14 percent between 2000 and 2004. Seven-eleven is not only the largest convenient store but also the largest retailer with its number of store and operation income in Japan. The reason why Seven-eleven is such successful is its competitive strategy, which is providing a high-availability of product that the customer find it convenient to shop. Thanks to its market dominant strategy and franchise system adapted, and its drivers make the best balance to the trade-off between efficiency and responsiveness, Seven-eleven has considerably become the most successful retail store. Problems The problem of Seven-eleven supply chain is that it replies too much on the transportation to make replenishment every day. The store would not have enough inventories if there is any accidents happen since the storage unit in store is very little. The risks associated with the system that Seven-eleven uses are costly with demand uncertainty. When the demand patterns...
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...SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT SEVEN-ELEVEN JAPAN CASE STUDY 1 1. A convenience store chain attempts to be responsive and provide customers what they need, when they need it, where they need it. What are some different ways that a convenience store supply chain can be responsive? What are some risks in each case? It is very important for a convenience store to be responsive, as they should be as convenient as possible, in order to fulfill their customers needs and preferences. Seven Eleven Japan is exactly fulfilling these criteria and therefore is a great example of a responsive convenient store. They have a lot of stores situated in convenient locations, they carefully track their items offering short replenishment cycles (less than 12 hours), they use highly sufficient and appropriate technologies to enhance forecasting and they have a responsive distribution and supply chain, that is vertically integrated in many of their SKUs. The main risks associated with high responsiveness are higher costs and greater uncertainty. Improving responsiveness (in general) could also include local capacity, inventory and enhancing replenishment, however this could lead to higher uncertainty and higher costs (especially for fresh and fast food), due to increasing capacity and store size to hold inventory (5000 SKUs in Seven Eleven Case). 2. Seven-Eleven’s supply chain strategy in Japan can be described as attempting to micro-match supply and demand using rapid replenishment. What...
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...Questions 1. A convenience store chain attempts to be responsive and provide customers what they need, when they need it, where they need it. What are some different ways that a convenience store supply chain can be responsive? What are some risks in each case? A convenience store can be more responsive by doing exactly what Seven-Eleven Japan is doing; many locations, rapid replenishment, appropriate technology deployment, and an equally responsive supplier (vertical integration for many of their SKUs). The risks associated with this system are the costs coupled with demand uncertainty. If demand patterns change dramatically, or the customer base changes, then Seven-Eleven is left with an operation that is not needed. In Seven-Eleven Japan’s case, multiple operations might be shuttered if an apartment building or large employer shuts down or relocates. 2. Seven-Eleven’s supply chain strategy in Japan can be described as attempting to micro-match supply and demand using rapid replenishment. What are some risks associated with this choice? Micro-matching supply and demand using rapid replenishment assumes that each store will repeat the same demand pattern on a daily basis. The tour bus phenomenon, where a group of unanticipated customers comes to the store and buys all of a type of product will cause difficulty for regular customers. During such an event, the store will likely stock out and customers may visit the next Seven-Eleven site down the block to make their...
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