Cultivate A True Retailer/Vendor Partnership

A good retailer/vendor relationship is a critical success factor for organizational performance. This month's Retail Solutions Forum provides a detailed look at the partnership between Agilysys, an IT services and outsourcing provider, and Wawa, a c-store chain located in the Mid-Atlantic states. The executives discuss why the two companies escalated their relationship to a true partnership. They also discuss what tactics fostered the partnership and how sharing IT best practices has benefited both companies.

How has the Agilysys/Wawa relationship evolved to a true partnership?
Kinzly: Because Wawa had an immediate need to improve store systems support, we selected Agilysys to provide field service support due to their understanding of the retail marketplace.

Working in concert, Wawa and Agilysys achieved a complete turnaround in store systems support within six months. With field service seen as a significant win, Wawa and Agilysys evolved their relationship to a partnership to focus on other objectives. Agilysys has developed into a partner because they listen, understand, and provide input and insights within the retail IT environment. For example, because of Agilysys' involvement, the new store technology procurement and installation process has been streamlined.

Agilysys is also helping with other business-critical areas within Wawa, and currently provides technical, business, and resource assistance. The Agilysys team resides at our headquarters, allowing key team members to be a part of our culture and day-to-day operations.

Civils: At the outset, Agilysys was engaged to perform field service for Wawa's 560+ stores. As Wawa navigated the process of converting from the previous service provider to Agilysys, some immediate gaps needed to be filled. Agilysys took on the responsibility of store installations, procurement, systems integration, and logistics. The relationship expanded based on our understanding of Wawa's needs, culture, and growth strategy.

As Agilysys' responsibilities grew, the company became an extension of Wawa rather than a vendor. Being on-site has enabled a deeper partnership in that the teams are accessible by walking across the hall rather than setting up a conference call. Agilysys is more responsive as a team and more in tune with the critical nature of Wawa's initiatives, because they live and breathe it every day with the Wawa team.

How has your company improved due to the partnership?
Kinzly: We're able to focus on business needs rather than tactical support issues. Wawa has been able to redirect the focus of our internal resources on initiatives and goals that are directly related to strategic initiatives instead of working on the day-to-day issues with field service. The Agilysys team manages the day-to-day operations for the field support team and escalates to the Wawa team when necessary.

Agilysys manages field support and Wawa manages and drives the business objectives. In addition, we've achieved greater visibility into store systems performance and quicker reaction to problems. We've significantly reduced downtime in the stores due to meeting equipment failures per contracted SLAs (service level agreements).

Civils: Agilysys has become more in tune with Wawa's initiatives by maintaining our on-site presence. Also, because we focus solely on Wawa's needs, Agilysys has driven service level attainment into the 96%+ range consistently for two years. We've developed new internal procedures for break-fix, staging, and store installation and implementation that have driven our costs and Wawa's costs down while simultaneously increasing service levels.

Which features of the partnership are indispensable and why?
Dodd: Wawa views Agilysys as an extension of the Wawa IT team. Having an on-site team at headquarters, as well as a distributed field support team, Agilysys can react quickly to issues in the field and provide more proactive service. The single source of support services across all store technology platforms provides cohesive customer satisfaction. We're provided with end-to-end accountability for store technologies from new store openings to operational support to closing of a store location.

Civils: Agilysys and Wawa maintain an open line of communication at the executive level down to the field level. Issues are addressed as a combined team to determine what works, and they share in the successes and challenges together. The focus is never on who caused the issue, but more directly on what caused it and how to correct it in the future.

Provide metrics that demonstrate how IT efforts have positively affected Wawa.
Dodd: SLA attainment increased from 40% to 96%. Two Wawa associates have been freed from daily monitoring service issues to focus on strategic initiatives. On-site installation time for new stores was reduced by 30%. We've eliminated DOA equipment for new stores by prestaging and testing the equipment. Also, we've simplified store equipment invoicing and cost allocations with the single invoice model.

Civils: Using the inventory and asset systems, Wawa has been able to accurately forecast new store, support stock, and consumable parts, reducing budgets by nearly 25%. We've reduced critical store-down incidents from an average of 10 to 15 hours to 4 hours or less.