7-Eleven Joe DePinto

February 22, 2010 by admin · View Comments
Filed under: 7-Eleven 

Background:

Business: 7-Eleven is part of an international chain of convenience stores, primarily operating as a franchise. The US subsidiary of this Japanese firm has its headquarters in Downtown Dallas, Texas.

CEO: Before being appointed Chief Executive of 7-Eleven in 2005, DePinto was President of GameStop Corporation. He has also held executive positions at PepsiCo, Inc., and was the Chief Operating Officer of Thornton Oil Corporation. A native of Chicago, Ill., DePinto earned a bachelor’s degree in Engineering Management from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and a Master of Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He and his wife Ingrid and their four sons reside in Southlake, Texas.

Kellogg MBA

Situations:

Day 1: A day in a 7-Eleven store in New York state. This specific store sells the most coffee of any 7-Eleven in the United States. DePinto attributes the success to Dolores, a 7-Eleven worker, who knows most of the customers by name and gives them a family feeling.

Day 2: A work day at a bakery that manufactures donuts and fritters sold at 7-Eleven stores. DePinto is paired with Phil, who is responsible for training, and who assigns him to place dough on a conveyor belt. DePinto struggles to keep up with the pace of the conveyor belt.

Day 3: A night shift in a 7-Eleven store in New York state. DePinto learns that the company’s policy on donating old food to charity is ignored. He also learns that Waqas, an immigrant from Pakistan, who works the graveyard shift so that he can attend college during the daytime perceives his job to be a dead end job.

Day 4: In a work day at a 7-Eleven store, DePinto makes a maintenance call to the store support center in Dallas. His request is placed as a lowest priority job, although DePinto thinks this should be a high priority, due to safety concerns and customers’ perception.

Day 5: DePinto is assigned to work with a delivery driver, Igor, to deliver product. DePinto is impressed with Igor’s loyalty to his job and his new country.

Lessons Learned:

  • 7-Eleven HQ needs to reconnect with the field by better understanding the special needs of the franchisees and the people who work for them and for 7-Eleven.
  • 7-Eleven needs to change the mind set of store employees from a “dead-end job” to a career opportunity, such as with Brian Dunn, the CEO of Best Buy, who started as a sales associate and was able to climb himself to the top.

Lessons Missed:

  • While DePinto acknowledges Dolores contribution to the success of the local 7-Eleven, he does not look for a way to replicate her loyalty and her ability to create sense of  family within other employees of 7-Eleven, or to find a way to keep hiring people like Dolores. “Hiring the right people” is a constant challenge for businesses, especially  as big as 7-Eleven who usually hire low-pay workers. It is interesting to compare DePinto challenges with Nick Sarillo ones, from Nick’s Pizza & Pub, who is trying to grow his business while maintaining a low turnaround and high satisfaction among his young employees. Can a chain as big as 7-Eleven hire only what Sarillo calls “A+ Players”?
  • DePinto wants to upgrade the priority of some of the maintenance calls, however no consideration has been made for the additional costs of such a change. There was also no mentioning of an appeal process to change the priority level of a maintenance call.
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