Discuss about the Management and Business Context for Southland Corporation.
7-Eleven that was known as The Southland Corporation until April 1999 is known as the world’s biggest machinist and franchiser along with licensor of expediency store. In the year of 1927, the organization was founded by John Jefferson Green. He approached to Jodie Thompson who was one of the founding directors of the Dallas Southland Ice Company with his new company. He proposed that the Southland Ice Company can furnish the items but he will sell these items. In this way, the first convenience store was established. The organization experienced its biggest profits during the World War II when the requirement for ice peaked. Southland became the primary contractor of ice for constructing Camp Hood, the US army’s biggest training camp. After renaming it to 7-Eleven, t he management of the organization left the circulation and food dispensation business and started to focus only on its foundation business. This essay will focus on different aspects of the organization which will help to understand the current performance and issues. Besides, general information about the organization will also be provided in this essay such its key partners, channels through which is operates and risks that are confronting the firm.
Zynga: Zynga developed its partnership with 7 Eleven with an aim or promoting its products in over 6,500 stores.
T-Mobile: In the year of 2015, T-Mobile partnered with 7 Eleven for their new prepaid phone.
Coca-Cola: In order to facilitate its world cup promotion campaigns, Coca Cola partnered with 7 Eleven.
American Express: 7Eleven was appointed as Newest Express Pay Merchant when American Express started issuing Contactless Payment Cards.
PayNearMe: This organization developed partnership with 7 Eleven and t he dealers received a broad network of locations where cash payments can be accepted.
MOL Group: When this company started to distribute MOL points, it conducted partnership with 7 Eleven nearly 12 years ago.
Marvel Group: Marvel group developed its partnership with the organization in 2003 for the Hulk movie.
Asus: In order to enter in the cloud printing market, Asus and its member e-Careme formed partnership with 7 Eleven.
NEC: NRI and NEC joined hands with 7 Eleven to build total network system.
Cott Corporation: This organization combined with 7 eleven to produce Buzz Cola that is an imaginary soda from Simpson television series.
7-eleven’s biggest challenge is coming from its management strategies relate to the employees. The workers in the organization are paid half the $24 an hour award rate or less (Regan, 2016). This is extremely illegal and totally goes against the Australian tenet of giving people of the country a “fair go.” Right after the issue was highlighted in the communities, the management of the organization was found them in a disaster and announced an “independence assessment” of earnings and offered to buy out franchises.
On the other hand, after becoming the biggest convenience store company, 7-Elven is showing no signs to slow down. They have announced that the management will open further 2000-2500 stores worldwide. According to Fraser (2016).), this continuous expansion can affect the organization drastically in upcoming times. The management of the organization is making the same mistakes committed by Mc Donald’s. This organization started to expand to gain competitive advantage over the rivals. However, later the management could not handle the operations in these much stores and was forced to close several number of stores. The same thing can happen with 7-Eleven. Therefore, they must think about other strategies to expand their business such as introducing new products in their stores. On the other hand, the management of the organization is also facing some issues related to their employees and franchisees which are discussed in the next parts of the essay. Therefore, the organization must focus on eliminating t hose issues first, rather than opening new shops around the world.
The organization is also facing challenges from its franchisees as in the last 4 years; more than a dozen franchisees sued the organization. Those franchisees claimed that the management of 7-Eleven forcefully exposed them of their stores on fake pretenses. Some of those companies also stated that 7-Eleven then flipped their stores to a new franchisee that wanted to pay superior amount. One of such discontented franchisees is Dilip and Saroj Patel who filed a case against 7-Eleven. They stated that the organization used storm t roper interrogation and isolation tactics to force them to give up their store (Sivaraman & Turner 2016). However, the management of 7-Elven filed its own documents in the court and argued that the franchisees were stealing from the organizations. Within those documents, the organization mentioned that its asset protections agents investigated suspicious behavior of the franchisees by seeing hours of footage collected from in-store surveillance cameras. Besides, they also submitted some covert photos and suspicious sales record in the court to prove that the organization is cheated by the franchisees.
However, all those issues faced by the organization, do not matter whether the management had any fault in it or not, are hampering the brand image of the company. Therefore, it is the high time that the company should stop developing more stores and should focus on eliminating these issues.
In spite of having stores in more than 56,000 locations, the management of the organization had a very little idea bout its consumers. In order to understand its consumers, in the year of 2012, t he organization started to work on its first digital consumer loyalty platform.
Previously, A lot of franchisees used customer loyalty programs; however, most of them were old-school punch cards. The management of the organization thought that customers are becoming more and digital and that is why; they felt the experience must be same from store to store. In the year of 2014, 7 Eleven launched the 7-Eleven mobile app, 7Rewards, and expanded customer loyalty platform that allowed the consumers to have a free beverage for every six cup they ordered. According to the programs, consumers had to use 7 eleven mobile app available in both Google play and iTunes app store.
Before targeting specific customers, 7 Eleven management always run a research in order to understand the frequency of the consumers and the demand of products t hat they are selling. From their marketing strategy and reward programs it can be stated that the organization is targeting consumers from age 30 and above as operational adults and certain adults that have families will most almost certainly come to buy expedient goods for the requirement of the families. However, 7 Eleven operates in several countries. In each country requirement and lifestyle of the people are different. Therefore, the management does not follow any specific market segmentation strategy. They first evaluate the market condition in the country along with citizen’s life style and requirement (Rao et al., 2014). Based on those data the management then decides which market segment they must target.
By the management and supervision of schedules and electronic main system7 Eleven is run from its national head quarter. Officials are responsible for dealing with the orders. Each of t he stores report to the head quarter separately. The management of the organization using equipment systems as computer aided devise barcode of product that placed in the way of withdrawal, information is instantaneously sent to 7 data warehouse eleven. On the other hand, the national headquarters of 7 Eleven handles all the products that 7 Eleven stores. Computerized purchase order barcode system is used by the management to make sure that each of the items is sent to an innermost computer at head office. This computer is also responsible for collecting orders from all 7 eleven stores and then it transmits them to the suppliers (Papadopoulos & Heslop, 2014). This organization is committed to sell both its own products and licensed brands. It buys products from the domestic and regional suppliers. The management also uses automated shipment planning machine which have the high priority in A17 recycling programs for their products. This organization also offers safe shipping experience for consumers and safer workplace for the associates.
Conclusion
In the end, it can be stated that, from its initial days the organization properly developed and implemented all their strategies that played a major role in its success. However, it is also true that the company was bankrupted twice and came back from the situation. Currently it is the largest company in terms of convenience stores. On the other hand, it is also seen that the organization is still dealing with some major problems both internally and externally. The workers are not happy with the wages provided by the organization. On the other hand, the franchisees are not happy with the company as they claimed that the management forcefully took away their shops. Besides, their current expansion strategy is also expected to create problems for the organization. Therefore, it can be stated that the future operations and activities of the organization will be extremely vital.
References
Fraser, M. (2016). Investigating 7-Eleven: Who are the real bad guys?. Griffith Journal of Law & Human Dignity, 4(2).
Papadopoulos, N., & Heslop, L. A. (2014). Product-country images: Impact and role in international marketing. Routledge.
Rao, D. T. S., Shariff, A. R. B. M., Shafi, S. B., & Hasim, N. (2014). Application of consumer lifestyle research in marketing perspective. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing & Management Review, 10, 15.
Regan, L. (2016). Time for change at 7-Eleven. Proctor, The, 36(5), 36.
Sivaraman, G., & Turner, P. (2016). The 7-Eleven wages scandal: The need for law reform. Precedent (Sydney, NSW), (135), 53.
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