Wawa's Technology Strategy

1430 Words6 Pages
Wawa has been a highly successful Pennsylvania-based convenience store chain that has existed since 1803. As of 2007, there were roughly 564 Wawa stores spanning across five Mid-Atlantic States. The company has been able to achieve continued success through its adaptability and competitiveness. Wawa has had a history of both being able to change with society and become pioneers of the convenience store industry, learning along the way what works and what doesn’t work. Their recent technological innovations and resourceful relationships with suppliers and distributions has given Wawa a significant competitive advantage as well as increased profit margins. Throughout this essay, I will explain Wawa’s technology strategy and its effectiveness, what their strategy should be going forward, as well as what implications their strategy will have for the convenience store industry. A technology strategy is the overall plan which consists of objectives, ideologies, and tactics relating to the use of technologies within a particular organization. Wawa’s technology strategy involved many aspects. First and foremost, Wawa had put significant emphasis on its ability to continue to change with the times and identify emerging trends in their industry. One of the company’s core values is actually “Embrace Change”. An example of Wawa embracing change is when they moved from relatively small stores with limited parking spaces, to increasingly large four acre lots with greater parking capacity and the ability to sell gas. Their chairman, Dick Wood, justified this strategy by stating that big stores mean flexibility, and since you don’t know what you’ll be doing ten years from now you will have much more options with a larger area compared to the previous smaller legacy stores. Although this isn’t exactly an example related to technology, Wawa wanted to stay true to

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