7-Eleven CEO and Managing Director Angus McKay spoke to Convenience World about the changes and challenges in the convenience retail market, top consumer trends, and the outlook for the business and industry.
Please comment on 7-Eleven’s performance in the market, store count and plans for growth.
7-Eleven has an ambition to grow from 240 million to one billion ‘customer moments’ per year by 2030. To achieve this ambition, we know we need to do things differently to support stores in meeting the needs of our customers by accelerating the pace and effectiveness of innovation. Central to that are recent changes to our operating model, which will make us more agile in not only identifying opportunities but also realising those opportunities for the benefit of our customers.
Significant change is underway across our support offices because we operate in a dynamic market. Customer needs and expectations are constantly changing and evolving, and we need our structure to be agile and flexible to meet and exceed those customer needs and expectations.
7-Eleven currently has more than 700 stores across Australia, and we plan to continue investing to grow our store network, including in regional communities. A key element in supporting our growth plan is realising the opportunities that exist and can be created by better utilising technology and digital platforms to deliver the products and services our customers need, when and where they need them.
One major piece of this growth strategy includes getting our tech foundations right to enable innovation at pace. In 2020 we relaunched the My 7-Eleven app and have more recently announced a number of partnerships that support our digital transformation. It will be projects like this, and specifically tech-led innovation, that will be a focus for 7-Eleven ongoing. Along with tech-led innovation, our new agile ways of working will be the delivery vehicle we use to enable us to achieve our ambition. We’re very excited for the opportunities on the horizon.
Read the exclusive interview in full in the July/August issue of Convenience World.
