Committee work and share groups allow c-store stakeholders to impart ideas and information for the betterment of everyone. By Fran Duskiewicz I worked for Nice N Easy for 30 years. For 20 of those years, it seemed as though I spent as much time on activities and projects outside of our company on things that…

Lately, CST Brands has been under scrutiny for making some bold acquisitions that will take time to generate an optimal return on investment. By Fran Duskiewicz CST Brands Inc. has been in the news quite a bit these past few months, facing challenges from a couple of activist shareholder groups that have taken issue with…

Hourly wages are a growing part of doing business in the convenience store industry. By Fran Duskiewicz In the 30 years that I worked for Nice N Easy, I never had a true job description—many job titles, but no job description. I asked once if I should have one and was told, “your job description…

It takes experience to identify certain managerial styles, and a strong will to overcome them. By Fran Duskiewicz One mistake newly promoted supervisors often make is believing that they can change managers who might have some issues in management style. Sometimes, with added responsibility and power, they approach dealing with these issues in a rather…

Just when a company thinks it’s on top, that’s when it should take inventory of the basics. By Fran Duskiewicz Peter Tamburro, with whom I worked at Nice N Easy for almost 20 years, and I still get together now and then at Nice N Easy’s former executive meeting lounge, Graziano’s, in Canastota, N.Y. We…

Though more c-stores strive to attract a younger customer base, older patrons are just as valuable. By Fran Duskiewicz Often we read in the trade journals about what the convenience industry should do to attract and keep the latest generation of customers. I’ve been around long enough to remember seminars about Gen X, Gen Y, Echoes,…

Foodservice items must be managed diligently to ward off shrink. By Fran Duskiewicz The column I wrote a couple months back, about how inept foodservice accounting practices and the lack of industry foodservice metrics and standards could result in untold shrink figures, resulted in the most comments and questions I’ve received. The advent of complete…

Everyone from the top to the bottom should understand what a good store manager does to keep the operation humming. By Fran Duskiewicz For the first 10 years or so that I worked for Nice N Easy, I spent most of my time on the road with store managers—training, opening stores, creating programs, whatever it…

Controlling inventory can be simpler. By Fran Duskiewicz About 10 years ago when I was at Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes, we stopped our foodservice managers from doing weekly food counts. We had decided it was an unproductive waste of time that was yielding faulty data, thereby hindering our efforts to improve performance in an…

In a positive corporate culture, you need different leaders and “True Believers.” By Fran Duskiewicz I suppose the reason that I have been mulling over what makes for a great corporate culture is that I will be moderating a panel on that topic at the National Advisors Group (NAG) Conference in Santa Fe, N.M. in…