Playing the (Board) Game

Running a convenience store has more in common with a board game than you might think.

When we compare running a c-store to a board game, we’re not being frivolous. Running a retail petroleum business is a multi-faceted, strategic game with the highest of stakes: ongoing profit and growth.

As is true of any game, you don’t want to rely on a roll of the dice to beat the competition. Just as a baseball player needs cleats and a glove, and a participant in a fantasy role playing game needs enchanted armor and a mace lit with unquenchable fire (or something), you need the right tools to play and win at the c-store game, and there’s no better tool than the back office system.

The reasons are many:

Setting the Stage: Establishing the Foundation
Just as a board game begins with setting up the playing board, back office software lays the groundwork for effective convenience store management—inventory tracking, sales data analysis, scanning at the shelves, etc. As a business foundation, there’s nothing more solid. After all, you don’t want the pieces of your business flipping off the board.

Turn-Based Strategies: Operational Efficiency
Board games often involve turn-based strategies, where players take turns making planned decisions and executing systematic actions. Similarly, back office software allows for a systematic approach to managing various aspects of a convenience store or gas station—from monitoring fuel sales at the pump to tracking inventory turn rate. The result is a timely, coordinated flow of information shared among decision-makers.

Resource Management: Finances and Inventory
In games where players are expected to accumulate and use various finite resources such as money and food, excellence in play means managing resources effectively. Addressing the same need, back office software enables owners to monitor finances, sales, and inventory that allow them to be initiative-taking in addressing and avoiding merchandise shortages, overstocking, excess spoilage and waste—even shrink. That’s just a start.

Risk and Reward: Price Optimization and Promotions
Board players often find themselves confronted with calculated risks of various impact. Take a little risk, get a little reward. Take a big risk, get a great reward, but if you miss . . . Anyway, c-store business owners are confronted with risk/reward ratios all the time, but back office software takes out a significant part of the risk by allowing analysis of historical sales and market trends, and providing projections based on real data. Informed decisions are the best decisions. They help you win.

Endgame: Reporting and Analytics
The final stages of a board game often involve evaluating strategies and outcomes. Back office software provides robust reporting and analytics features, allowing owners to review performance, identify areas for improvement, and plan future moves to stay competitive in the market. There’s nothing more satisfying than getting to that final square of success before all the others. A back office system can make it happen.

Even if you don’t view your operation as a strategic, game-like competition, the benefits of a back office system still apply. In the case of the Computerized Daily Book, it goes beyond the back office to transactional POS reporting, price book management, mobile computing with scanning, and more.

SSCS Technology can shore up multiple areas of your store at once. Game or not, the ultimate goal is profitability and long-term growth. As a tool, it makes all the difference.

Give us a call at (800) 927-7277 and we can talk about it.