When the weather is hot, 7-Eleven Japan’s stores in Tokyo have plenty of bento boxes —Japan’s cold boxed meals of rice, pickles and other foodstuffs — while on cold days there are lots of hot noodles for sale. The stores’ operators always seem to have plenty of what their customers want; in fact, they order and receive fresh food deliveries three times a day. It is no coincidence that the company is the nation’s most profitable retailer. Its 2004 gross margins topped 30% — six times its 1977 gross margins.
7-Eleven Japan Co. Ltd. is — to put it simply — very savvy about using IT. At least twice a week, every one of its 10,000-plus mostly franchised stores gets a visit from a 7- Eleven Japan “counselor.” The counselor works with the store manager or franchisee to improve the business, often by using data from the store’s information systems to manage and order more effectively.1
By matching local practices and preferences to IT investments, the store can continually introduce and succeed with new product lines. The typical store adds 70% new items for sale each year, a higher rate than that of any other retailer in Japan, which helped double its average stores’ daily sales from 1977 to 2004. The store managers regularly receive graphical data showing recent sales, weather conditions and... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
Become a premium subscriber today to read this and all MIT Sloan Managmeent Review articles.
Buy this article. Purchase one or more copies of this article in PDF form.
Become a premium subscriber today to read this article and the entire archive of MIT SMR articles.
Upgrade your existing subscription to premium
Sign in if you are a premium subscriber.
Do you subscribe the MIT Sloan Management Review in print? Enter the email address and password you used when ordering. Don't remember? Lookup your subscription account information
- Register for free access to recent articles and the current issue of MIT Sloan Management Review.
- Subscribe and read articles from the past three years online.
- Premium subscription give you access to the entire archive of articles.
