Most Americans are familiar with 7-Eleven—the country’s biggest convenience store chain with 9,000 stores in 34 states—they are likely unaware that the chain is not a U.S. company; it is owned by a Japanese company, Seven & i Group. They are probably also unaware that there are far more 7-Eleven stores in Japan (21,000 in a country with a population less than half the size of the U.S.) than there are in the U.S. And they are probably also unaware that the convenience store chain is the world’s largest with 69,000 stores in 18 countries.

Convenience stores in Japan are called konbini. Konbini were introduced in Japan in the 1970s. Since then, the number of convenience stores in Japan has grown to 58,000. These 58,000 stores represent over $100 billion in sales each year.

In spite of this growth, in 2019, customer visits were down 1.6% (to 16.35 billion visits). 7-Eleven’s parent company shuttered 24 stores and shortened hours. Convenience stores are expected to continue to shorten hours in response to an anticipated labor shortage and increased competition from ecommerce providers and other alternatives, which are enabled by new technologies. The chain has also changed some of its business practices to reduce its food waste, including offering heavy discounts on expiring food items, since convenience stores were noted as one of the primary offenders in the 2019 Food Waste Reduction bill.

7-Eleven also offers discounts through its app, which also offers recipes, advice for healthy eating, and allows customers to see the nutritional values of different offerings using a traffic light system. It added convenience in its check out, offering customers the opportunity to use digital payments like PayPal. Its competitors are experimenting with self-checkout registers that utilize biometric and facial recognition technologies. A new competitor, NTT Data, is launching stores that do not have checkout counters at all, which are similar to the Amazon Go concept in the United States, which uses an app. Lawson is offering service without employees from midnight to 5AM to try to save money on labor.

Below is a table with example sales data for the top Japanese konbini companies in 2017 and 2018:

	Sales (in USD millions)
Company	2017	2018
7-Eleven	35	40
FamilyMart	30	27
Lawson	24	20
Others	11	14

1. Calculate market shares for each company for both years. Calculate the percentage change in year-over-year unit sales for each company. What can you conclude from the market shares and year-over-year changes that you calculated? Please provide not only your results but also your interpretation of the results.

2. Conduct research on 7-Eleven, FamilyMart, and Lawson in Japan. To what do you attribute the success of these Japanese convenience stores? Be specific in your response, considering at least three factors associated with the global market and cultural factors that are specific to the Japanese market. Please cite appropriate references in your discussion using APA format.

3. 7-Eleven will face pressure to its operations in Japan due to the anticipated labor shortage, the threats associated with new technology, and the demands to be more socially responsible. Its commitment to the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals are outlined in its 2019 Company Profile. It has also made a commitment to a 30% reduction of its emissions by 2030, with a Green Challenge 2050 Vision to cut emissions by 80%. Given what you learned about the culture and the market, do you think the commitment so sustainable development goals and lower emissions is a wise business strategy? Please support your response with a minimum of three fact-based arguments from your research.

4. Explain how 7-Eleven’s managerial practices should differ between the stores in the U.S. and those in Japan. Provide examples supporting your explanation.

Please use your own words, follow the community standards for academic honesty, and cite your sources.