IRVING, Texas, Sept. 5, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- 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.

Today, the company is arming this group with Microsoft Surface devices equipped with Microsoft 365 and Power BI to provide Franchisees with better insight from corporate into their store's performance, purchase trends and other data to help them grow their business.

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," said Gurmeet Singh, 7-Eleven EVP, chief digital, chief information and chief marketing officer.

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.

They can also use the Surface camera to take a picture of the schematics of the store and quickly and easily identify differences from the planogram that Franchisees can use to analyze sales opportunities.

Last year was a big one for 7-Eleven.

Since the 90-year-old retailer completed the country’s first fully autonomous drone delivery in 2016, 7-Eleven has continued its streak of innovation.

In the past four months, the chain has launched an industry-first chatbot, revamped its rewards program and begun testing an online ordering, delivery and pickup app.

These accomplishments are just a sample of the tech-related milestones 7-Eleven has galloped past recently, and the same name appears behind each: Gurmeet Singh.

In a recent interview with CSP, Singh mentioned plans to dive deeper into drone delivery, go further with digital payments and even explore how augmented reality can enhance the customer experience.

Above all, Singh and 7-Eleven are exploring the new definition of convenience in which the physical store is no longer the entire retail experience.

In another sign that mobile self-checkout isn't just a fad, 7-Eleven, the world's largest convenience store chain, has hopped on the hot mobile scan-and-go bandwagon and introduced its own test service to allow customers to skip the checkout line.

After a three-month trial at its Irving, Texas, headquarters store this year, the retailer is testing its Scan & Pay service in 14 more stores in nearby Dallas, with plans to expand it to more cities next year, said Gurmeet Singh, 7-Eleven’s chief digital officer and chief information officer, adding that the company built the prototype technology in-house in just five weeks.

We saw a great adoption and feedback.”

With the move, 7-Eleven joins retailers like Dollar General, Kroger and Walmart’s Sam’s Club that also have their own mobile scan-and-pay services.

About 50% of the U.S. population lives within one mile of a 7-Eleven, the company said.

It had a 28% share of the U.S. convenience store market last year, more than four times the 6% share held by No.

It is no secret that consumers are increasingly more demanding.

Because online stores like Amazon provide that value to their customers, some are saying brick-and-mortar retail is dead.

Even convenience stores are being disrupted by more convenient options.

Brick-and-mortar retailers, including convenience retailers, still have a tremendous opportunity in front of them.

Unlike previous technology advancements, digital transformation goes beyond efficiency and often creates new business and operating models that ensure customers are digitally at the center of everything retailers do.

Some of those new models may include frictionless checkout, personalization and increased focus on emotional, not just transactional, loyalty.