Page 69 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

56 grow from within

to discuss what hasn’t worked, but when we find them, gems
of insight typically surface. Why did one approach work while
the other failed? How can we generalize what we learned?
The leaders of privately held East Coast retailer Wawa were
willing to share just such a situation. Their experience illus-
trates the power of comprehensive business system design.
Although it is relatively unknown outside of its core markets
in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Vir-
ginia, Wawa operates a chain of convenience stores with com-
bined revenues of over $4 billion in 2007.
But Wawa is not just a convenience store. Its locations are
typically full of coffee buyers in the morning and bustling dur-
ing lunch breaks and dinnertime. The staff is renowned for
going out of its way to ensure customer satisfaction, and many
customers refer to their nearest location as “my Wawa.” Wawa
is not your typical company. In an industry plagued by high
employee turnover, Wawa enjoys turnover of less than 10 per-
cent for store-level salaried employees. Employees commit
themselves to Wawa’s objectives and values, and by the same
token they also expect Wawa to commit itself to them. Wawa
considers the quality of its food offerings and customer ser vice
to be central to its success. It takes the in-store experience quite
seriously. Products or services that diminish this experience are
typically driven from the shelves like pariahs.
Back in the early 1980s, Wawa made its first foray into offer-
ing gasoline at its stores. While this might seem like an obvi-
ous market for a company with loads of locations and regular,
repeat customers, it was a big step for the nearly century-old
retailer. At the time, gasoline retailers with expansive networks
and capital were opening convenience stores to bolster their
sales and margins, and Wawa felt that it must respond. Fur-
thermore, gasoline retailing offered attractive financials, with
the potential for higher per-store revenue as a result of more