Question: 7-Eleven
"Convenience" Is Born
In 1927 an employee of the Southland Ice Company in Dallas, Texas, began selling milk, bread, and eggs from the ice dock on Sundays and evenings when grocery stores were closed. This sparked the idea for the convenience store. In 1946 the stores were renamed 7-Eleven to reflect their new hours: 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Japan Borrows the Idea
In the early 1970s, Toshifumi Suzuki, a young Japanese executive, came to the United States to look into franchising Denny's restaurants in Japan. He was more impressed by the 7-Elevens he saw. With its densely populated cities and small commercial lots, Japan was perfectly suited to the convenience-store format. In 1974 Suzuki opened a chain of stores under the 7-Eleven name. Since then, the retailer has changed the way the country shops and eats. Many stores offer banking services, dry-cleaning drop-off, parcel post, mobile-phone recharging, photocopying, and even voter registration. They also stock cheap, high-quality foods, such as gourmet rice balls, exotic salads, and other delicacies customized to local tastes. Technology, coordinated deliveries, and inventory control have boosted efficiency. The company uses a satellite-based ordering system that includes detailed weather reports. This way, managers know to order more cold noodles on warm days or more fresh produce on rainy days, when customers want to avoid a trip to the grocery store. Today 7-Eleven is Japan's most profitable retailer.
The Student Buys the Teacher
While 7-Eleven Japan boomed, its U.S. counterpart declined. In the late 1980s, 7-Eleven Japan and its parent company, Ito-Yokado, helped turn around the U.S. stores. They improved the U.S. distribution network and introduced new sandwiches, bakery items, and coffees. In 1991, ItoYokado bought 70 percent of the American company outright. Today nearly 30,000 7-Eleven stores generate total sales of more than $43 billion in 17 countries and U.S. territories.
1. Drawing Conclusions How do you know that 7-Eleven is a multinational corporation?
2. Comparing and Contrasting In what ways do 7-Elevens in Japan differ from their U.S. counterparts?