Europe’s Fastest Growing Chain is Reinventing the 24/7 Store as an “Ultimate Convenience Ecosystem”

Did you know that Europe’s largest convenience chain isn’t British or German or French? It’s Polish! Founded in 1998, the chain, Zabka Polska (meaning “Little Frog” in Polish), operates more than 8,300 stores throughout Poland serving nearly 3 million customers every day. That translates to more than a billion customer interactions per year. Clearly, this “Little Frog” is quite popular.

A Little Frog with Big Ideas

Zabka describes itself as the “ultimate modern convenience ecosystem” and has seen incredible growth in recent years – thanks to a combination of ambition, vision, and the right technology to turn that vision into a sustainable reality.

Using modern technologies, Zabka tries to facilitate the purchases of customers and the work of franchisees at every step: automatic cash registers, price labels with an e-ink screen, kinetic floors generating electricity or robots preparing hot dogs. Yes, imagine that – robots slapping mustard on your hot dog!

At the same time, the technology provides an environmentally friendly approach to the functioning of the store: photovoltaic panels, energy storage, dust-absorbing paving stones and many others. The implementation of such a high-tech store can be admired at Lewadów street in Warsaw.

But there’s another tech story unfolding behind the scenes, which has to do with how Zabka functions as a business.

Keeping the “System” in Ecosystem

Zabka’s 8,300 stores are operated by 7,200 franchisees. The franchise model has enabled the company to grow quickly and cover a lot of territory – by one estimate, 15.5 m of the country’s population lives within 500 meters of a Zabka store location. But managing a business with 7,200 business partners presents some challenges, to say the least.

If you think about it, having thousands of franchisees means many different ways of communicating, keeping records, and sharing information. This meant limited insight into operations, limited quality control, and limited ability to ensure a consistent brand experience across locations.

The complex franchisee management ecosystem was fragmented across different technologies with no clear business ownership. This didn’t just create problems for Zabka and existing franchisees – it established a high entry threshold for potential new franchisees, which in turn hampered Zabka’s ambitious expansion goals.

From Complexity to Simplicity

Undaunted, the “Little Frog” decided to upgrade itsfranchisee relationship management processes by implementinga standardized suite of applications on a unified platform. The centerpiece of this new solution is SAP Integration Suite, which serves as the integration platform for a diverse set of cross-system business functions.

The new franchisee management infrastructure has allowed Zabka to evolve from complexity to simplicity, clearing the way for them to focus on essentials like recruitment, property management, and rapid response to the needs of individual franchisees.

Now, all of Zabka’s franchisee data, processes and communication are handled in a single portal and mobile app. A single candidate portal provides full 360º insight into the recruitment process. The new platform features a franchisee support desk.

Leapfrogging the Competition

Bottom line: this new system is capable of orchestrating huge volumes of data at large scale in a highly decentralized hybrid retail ecosystem – empowering Zabka to turn its ambitious vision into a reality.

Jakub Masłowski, Technology Director, observes, “Żabka as a company is based on innovative methods of operation, our stores are modern and connected by a vast IT net. The upgrade to the latest SAP version available in the market will enable us to use new functionalities, which were impossible to use before.”

And by the way, for all of these amazing achievements, Zabka Polska was named a finalist in this year’s SAP Innovation Awards. You can read about what this “Little Frog” did to earn this coveted position in their award’s pitch deck.