7-Eleven teams up with Microsoft to empower field employees

7-Eleven Inc. is using modern workplace solutions, data services and devices from Microsoft to empower field employees and provide better business insight to franchisees.

The convenience store operator is equipping these field employees, who serve as the connection between headquarters and its franchisees, with Microsoft Surface devices that use Microsoft 365 and Power BI.

This provides franchisees with better insight from corporate into their store's performance, purchase trends and other data to help them grow their business.

"Franchisees have a significant role to play in our transformation, and empowering them with the right information is critical," said Gurmeet Singh, 7-Eleven executive vice president, chief digital, chief information and chief marketing officer. "Our collaboration with Microsoft enables us to get data out to Franchisees through our field employees that they can use to make better business decisions."

Power BI dashboards help field employees to spot trends and visualize insights from point-of-sale data stored and analyzed by Azure Data Lake and Azure SQL Data Warehouse. This enables them to recommend actions to franchisees, boosting sales and ensuring the right products are stocked to meet customer demand, the company said.

Additionally, franchisees can take pictures of their store's schematics using the Surface camera, which allows them to quickly identify differences from the planogram that they can use to analyze sales opportunities.

"Unlocking the power of data is the key to reinventing the future and delivering amazing customer experiences in the retail industry," said Shelley Bransten, corporate vice president of worldwide retail and consumer goods industries, Microsoft Corp. "We're thrilled to empower 7-Eleven's field and franchisees with the services, knowledge and devices to innovate on behalf of their customers wherever they are in their shopper journey."

Field employees will be able to use Surface as their mobile office; use Microsoft OneDrive to give them real-time access to the latest corporate assets; and use Microsoft Intune to provide the security capabilities needed for a mobile workforce, with the ability to remotely manage devices and protect data.

7-Eleven is also migrating its infrastructure to Azure and leveraging advanced technologies such as AI to power enhanced customer experiences. The companies expect to apply future collaborations across intelligent and emerging technologies such as AI, data analytics and blockchain to drive even greater insight, efficiencies and customer experiences across its business, the convenience retailer announced.

Irving-based 7-Eleven operates, franchises and/or licenses more than 68,000 stores in 17 countries, including 11,800 in North America.

Originally published at Convenience Store News.